LIBRARY 

University  of  California* 

IRVINE 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE 
PROSE  OF  MACAULAY 


EDITED  BY 


LUCIUS  HUDSON  HOLT,  Pn.D. 

LIEUTENANT  COLONEL,  UNITED   STATES  ARMY 
PROFESSOR  OK   ENGLISH    AND   HISTORY 
UNITED    STATES    MILITARY    ACADEMY 


GINN  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON     •     NEW    YORK     •     CHICAGO     •     LONDON 
ATLANTA    •    DALLAS    •    COLUMBUS    •    SAN    FRANCISCO 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY  LUCIUS  HUDSON  HOLT 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

716.7 


A  i  1 


tEftt   athenaeum   jprtgg 

GINN  AND  COMPANY  •  PRO- 
PRIETORS •  DOSTON  •  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

These  selections  are  chosen  from  the  entire  range  of 
Macaulay's  prose  works  with  the  exception  of  his  speeches. 
Although  the  speeches  were  edited  for  publication,  some  of 
their  individual  characteristics  of  phrase  and  form  were 
obviously  intended  for  oral  rather  than  for  written  expression. 
It  is  believed,  therefore,  that  by  restricting  these  selections  to 
those  compositions  especially  produced  for  the  reading  public, 
the  best  and  most  typical  of  Macaulay's  literary  work  has 
been  included. 

Lovers  of  Macaulay  will  undoubtedly  miss  some  of  their 
favorite  Essays,  —  as,  for  example,  the  study  of  Bacon  and  the 
brilliant  interpretation  of  Machiavelli's  character  and  period,— 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  selections  included  will  familiarize 
the  reader  with  the  breadth  and  variety  of  Macaulay's 
interests  and  the  excellences  of  his  style. 

L.  H.  H. 

WEST  POINT,  N.  Y. 


in 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vii 

I.  Life  of  Macaulay 
II.  Personal  Characteristics 
III.  Macaulay's  Prose  Works 

MILTON i 

Review  of  Joannis  Miltoni,  Angli,  de  Doctrind  Christiana 
libri  duo  posthumi.  A  Treatise  on  Christian  Doctrine,  compiled 
from  the  Holy  Scriptures  alone.  By  John  Milton,  translated  from 
the  Original  by  Charles  R.  Sumner,  M.A.,  etc.,  1825.  The  essay 
appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  August,  1825. 

HISTORY 55 

From  an  essay  by  this  title  which  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  for  May,  1828  ;  suggested  by  The  Romance  of  History  : 
England.  By  Henry  Neele.  London,  1828. 

BYRON 66 

From  a  review  of  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron ;  -with 
Notices  of  his  Life.  By  Thomas  Moore,  Esq.  2  vols.,  410.  Lon- 
don, 1830.  The  essay  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
June,  1831. 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON 92 

From  a  review  of  The  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.  Includ- 
ing a  Journal  of  a  Tour  to  the  Hebrides,  by  James  Boswell, 
Esq.  A  new  Edition  with  numerous  Additions  and  Notes. 
By  John  Wilson  Croker,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.  5  vols.,  8vo.  London, 
1831.  The  essay  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
September,  1831. 

JOHN  BUNYAN 122 

From  a  review  of  The  Pilgrim's  Progress,  with  a  Life  of  John 
Bunyan.  By  Robert  Southey,  Esq.,  LL.D.,  Poet  Laureate.  Illus- 
trated with  Engravings.  8vo.  London,  1831.  The  essay 
appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  December,  1831. 

LORD  CLIVE 135 

From  a  review  of  The  Life  of  Robert  Lord  Clive ;  collected  from 
the  Family  Papers,  communicated  by  the  Earl  of  Powis.  By 


vi  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

PAGE 

Major-General  Sir  John  Malcolm,  K.CiB.  3  vols.,  8vo.  London, 
1836.  The  essay  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
January,  1840. 

WARREN  HASTINGS 188 

From  a  review  of  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Warren  Hastings, 
first  Governor-General  of  Bengal.  Compiled  from  Original 
Papers,  by  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig,  M.A.  3  vols.,  8vo.  London, 
1841.  The  essay  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
October,  1841. 

FREDERIC  THE  GREAT 233 

From  a  review  of  Frederic  the  Great  and  his  Times.  Edited, 
with  an  Introduction,  by  Thomas  Campbell,  Esq.  2  vols.,  8vo. 
London,  1842.  The  essay  appeared  in  the  Edinburgh  Review 
for  April,  1842. 

ADDISON 287 

From  a  review  of  The  Life  of  Joseph  Addison.  By  Lucy  Aikin. 
2  vols.,  8vo.  London,  1843.  The  essay  appeared  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  for  July,  1843. 

HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 353 

Vols.  I  and  II  published  in  1848;  Vols.  Ill  and  IV,  1855; 
Vol.  V  (edited  by  Lady  Trevelyan),  1861. 

(a)  William  and  Mary.    (From  Chapter  VII.) 353 

(b)  Invitation  to  William.    (From  Chapter  IX.) 366 

(c)  Revolution  of  1688.    (From  Chapter  X.) 370, 

(d)  William  and  Mary  in  England.    (From  Chapter  XI.)       .      .  391' 

(e)  The  Toleration  Act.  (From  Chapter  XI.) 396 

(/")  The  Relief  of  Londonderry.  (From  Chapter  XII.)  .  .  .  401 

(g}  The  King's  Touch  for  Scrofula.  (From  Chapter  XIV.)  .  .  414 
(h)  Rise  and  Progress,  of  Parliamentary  Corruption.  (From 

Chapter  XV.) 417 

(/)  The  Bank  of  England.  (From  Chapter  XX.) 422 

(_/)  The  Death  of  Mary.  (From  Chapter  XX.) 435 

(k)  (From  Macaulay's  notes,  revised  by  him.)  The  Visit  of  Peter 

the  Great  to  London.  (From  Chapter  XXIII.) .  .  .  441 

(/)  (From  Macaulay's  notes,  not  revised  by  him.)  The  Death  of 

William.    (From  Chapter  XXV.) 449 


INTRODUCTION 


LIFE  OF  MACAULAY 

Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  was  born  at  Rothley  Temple,  Leices- 
tershire, October  25,  1800,  the  first  of  the  children  of  Zachary 
Macaulay  and  Selina  (Mills)  Macaulay. 

Zachary  Macaulay  had  already  made  his  mark  in  that  devoted 
band  which  did  so  much  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  to 
arouse  public  opinion  in  England  against  the  continuation  of  the 
slave  trade.  He  had  been  sent  as  a  boy  of  sixteen  to  Jamaica  to 
become  a  bookkeeper  in  the  Jamaican  office  of  a  Scotch  business 
firm,  had  become  thoroughly  disgusted  with  slavery  by  his  enforced 
contact  with  conditions  in  the  colony,  surrendered  his  position  after 
eight  years  of  toil,  and  in  1792  returned  to  England  with  little  money, 
no  work,  but  unalterable  convictions  with  respect  to  the  iniquity  of 
slavery.  Always  a  man  of  singleness  of  purpose,  he  could  see  before 
him  only  the  duty  of  throwing  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  aboli- 
tionist cause.  Opportunity  presented  itself  in  the  carrying  out  of  a 
Utopian  scheme  for  a  colony  at  Sierra  Leone  to  be  peopled  by  liber- 
ated slaves.  Zachary  Macaulay  accepted  the  post  of  member  of  the 
council  in  the  far-away  colony,  became  governor,  toiled  unceasingly 
and  self-sacrificingly  against  every  conceivable  obstacle  and  disap- 
pointment, and  at  last,  in  1799,  after  six  long  years,  resigned  his 
position  and  returned  to  England.  Almost  immediately  he  was  ap- 
pointed secretary  for  the  Sierra  Leone  company,  a  position  which 
yielded  him  a  comfortable  income  in  return  for  much  hard  work  in 
the  company's  business. 

Selina  Mills,  to  whom  Zachary  Macaulay  was  married  August  26, 
1799,  was  of  a  Quaker  family  of  Bristol.  As  a  girl  she  was  pretty 

1  The  facts  and  citations  herein  given  are  in  the  main  taken  from  the 
authoritative  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Lord  Macaulay,"  written  by  his  nephew, 
G.  Otto  Trevelyan. 

vii 


viii  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  attractive  ;  as  a  woman  she  was  dignified  and  sensible.  She  was 
a  most  excellent  wife  and  mother,  devoted  to  her  stern  husband  even 
during  those  later  years  when  his  interest  in  abolition  had  apparently 
absorbed  every  other  interest  in  his  life,  ruling  her  children  with  for- 
bearance and  tact  and  inspiring  within  them  the  deepest  affection. 

We  have  attractive  descriptions  of  the  home  in  which  Macaulay 
spent  his  youth.  Younger  brothers  and  sisters,  five  altogether,  looked 
up  to  "Tom"  as  their  leader  in  fun.  His  sister  writes  in  later  years : 
"  His  unruffled  sweetness  of  temper,  his  unfailing  flow  of  spirits,  his 
amusing  talk,  all  made  his  presence  so  delightful  that  his  wishes  and 
his  tastes  were  our  law.  .  .  .  My  earliest  recollections  speak  of  the 
intense  happiness  of  the  holidays,  beginning  with  finding  him  in  papa's 
room  in  the  morning;  the  awe  at  the  idea  of  his  having  reached  home 
in  the  dark  after  we  were  in  bed,  and  the  Saturnalia  which  at  once 
set  in ;  no  lessons ;  nothing  but  fun  and  merriment  for  the  whole  six 
weeks."  And  yet  this  boy  who  was  at  the  head  of  the  fun  in  his 
home  had  from  an  early  age  shown  notable  signs  of  precocity. 
u  From  the  time  he  was  three  years  old,"  writes  his  nephew  and 
biographer,  Trevelyan,  "  he  read  incessantly,  for  the  most  part  lying 
on  the  rug  before  the  fire,  with  his  book  on  the  ground,  and  a  piece 
of  bread-and-butter  in  his  hand."  When  he  was  but  eight  years  old 
he  undertook  to  write  a  compendium  of  the  world's  history  and  actu- 
ally gave  a  coherent  account  of  the  great  events  from  the  creation 
to  his  own  time.  Inspired  by  Scott's  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel," 
he  started  a  poem  called  "  The  Battle  of  Cheviot,"  finished  nearly 
four  hundred  lines,  and  dropped  it  to  compose  an  heroic  poem 
entitled  "  Olaus  the  Great ;  or,  The  Conquest  of  Mona."  Naturally 
enough,  the  strict  religious  atmosphere  of  his  home  caused  him  to 
turn  to  hymn  writing,  also,  and  many  of  his  productions  were  treas- 
ured by  his  mother  during  her  whole  life.  Macaulay's  precocity,  how- 
ever, did  not  lead  him  to  love  the  regular  curriculum  in  his  schools. 
He  read  continually,  wrote  persistently,  but  protested  against  going 
to  school.  His  mother's  kindly  insistence  forced  him  to  school  daily, 
overruling  all  excuses  and  pleadings.  Indeed,  too  much  credit  cannot 
be  given  to  the  judicious  care  which  his  fond  mother  gave  him : 
his  evident  precocity  did  not  gain  him  the  "  spoiling "  which  might 
have  followed  ;  his  tastes  were  directed  ;  his  compositions  criticized  ; 
his  tendencies  to  haste  and  carelessness  curbed.  Another  influence 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

during  his  boyhood  which  may  have  played  a  significant  part  in  the 
direction  of  his  later  life  was  the  household  discussion  of  political  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  To  be  sure,  the  discussions  in  which  his  father 
was  so  interested  were  mainly  connected  with  the  abolitionist  move- 
ment, still  they  accustomed  the  boy  to  the  thought  of  politics  and 
opened  to  his  active  mind  the  methods  by  which  political  schemes 
were  conceived  and  carried  through.  Yet,  all  in  all,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  Macaulay  was  not  a  boy's  boy.  He  did  not  like  dogs, 
bird's-nesting,  shooting,  outdoor  games,  and  the  like.  Leader  of  fun 
as  he  was  at  home,  he  directed  the  play  along  those  channels  that 
appealed  to  him  most.  "  His  notion  of  perfect  happiness  was  to  see 
us  all  working  round  him,"  writes  his  sister,  "while  he  read  aloud 
a  novel."  Capping  verses,  acting  the  scenes  in  books  read,  were 
favorite  amusements  with  him  even  when  he  had  become  a  grown 
young  man.  He  had  a  very  happy  boyhood,  but  it  was  not  that  of 
a  normal  boy. 

In  the  fall  of  1818  Macaulay  matriculated  at  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge.  In  after  years  Macaulay's  passionate  love  for  his  college 
was  one  of  his  striking  characteristics.  He  did  not  do  well  in  the 
academic  work,  failing  to  get  honors,  his  failure  being  due  largely  to 
his  detestation  of  the  mathematical  studies  which  formed  such  an 
essential  part  of  the  curriculum.  "  I  can  scarcely  bear  to  write  on 
mathematics  or  mathematicians,"  he  once  said  in  a  letter  from  col- 
lege. "  Oh  for  words  to  express  my  abomination  of  that  science,  if 
a  name  sacred  to  the  useful  and  embellishing  arts  may  be  applied  to 
the  perception  and  recollection  of  certain  properties  in  numbers  and 
figures.  .  .  .  '  Discipline '  of  the  mind  I  Say  rather  starvation,  con- 
finement, torture,  annihilation  1  "  The  comparative  freedom  of  the 
college  life,  however,  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  indulge  his  love  of 
society  and  his  passion  for  reading.  His  genius  for  conversation  and 
argument  drew  around  him  a  brilliant  group,  the  two  Coleridges 
(Derwent  and  Henry),  Villiers,  Grey,  Romilly,  Praed,  and  Austin. 
"  So  long  as  a  door  was  open  or  a  light  burning  in  any  of  the  courts," 
writes  Trevelyan,  "  Macaulay  was  always  in  the  mood  for  conversa- 
tion and  companionship.  ...  It  must  have  been  well  worth  the  loss 
of  sleep  to  hear  Macaulay  plying  Austin  with  sarcasms  upon  the 
doctrine  of  the  '  Greatest  Happiness,' l  which  then  had  still  some 
1  Referring  to  the  practical  philosophy  of  Jeremy  Bentham. 


x  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

gloss  of  novelty ;  putting  into  an  ever-fresh  shape  the  time-honored 
jokes  against  the  Johnians  for  the  benefit  of  the  Villierses ;  and 
urging  an  interminable  debate  on  Wordsworth's  merits  as  a  poet,  in 
which  the  Coleridges,  as  in  duty  bound,  were  ever  ready  to  engage. 
In  this  particular  field  he  acquired  a  skill  of  fence  which  rendered 
him  the  most  redoubtable  of  antagonists."  Although  he  made  no 
mark  in  the  academic  work,  he  succeeded  better,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  in  debating  and  in  literary  work.  He  was  a  prominent 
figure  in  the  debates  of  the  Cambridge  Union,  he  once  gained  the 
prize  for  Latin  declamation,  and  twice  the  chancellor's  medal  for 
English  verse.  In  spite  of  his  failure  to  attain  a  high  rank  in  the 
mathematical  work,  he  received  a  university  scholarship  in  1821  and 
was  appointed  a  fellow  in  1824.  Looking  back  upon  his  college 
career  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  he  once  wrote  :  "  If  a  man  brings 
away  from  Cambridge  self-knowledge,  accuracy  of  mind,  and  habits 
of  strong  intellectual  exertion,  he  has  gained  more  than  if  he  had 
made  a  display  of  showy  Etonian  scholarship,  got  three  or  four 
Brown's  medals,  and  gone  forth  into  the  world  a  school-boy,  and 
doomed  to  be  a  school-boy  to  the  last.  .  .  .  But  I  often  regret,  and 
even  acutely,  my  want  of  a  senior  wrangler's  knowledge  of  physics 
and  mathematics ;  and  I  regret  still  more  some  habits  of  mind  which 
a  senior  wrangler  is  pretty  certain  to  possess." 

In  1826  Macaulay  was  called  to  the  bar.  He  went  upon  the 
Northern  Circuit,  but  never  took  his  legal  work  seriously.  He  had 
already  achieved  a  success  in"  literature  which  tempted  him  from  the 
law,  and  had  further  conceived  a  strong  interest  in  politics.  The  time 
which,  had  he  intended  himself  for  success  in  law,  he  should  have 
spent  in  legal  studies,  he  occupied  in  writing  and  in  absorbed  contem- 
plation of  the  procedure  in  the  House  of  Commons  from  a  seat  in 
the  galleries. 

Macaulay,  while  he  was  still  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge,  had 
contributed  liberally  to  the  magazines.  From  1823  on  his  articles  had 
been  accepted.  In  1825  he  was  immensely  pleased  with  an  invitation 
to  write  an  article  for  the  great  liberal  periodical,  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  His  response  to  this  invitation  was  his  essay  on  Milton,  ap- 
pearing in  August  of  the  same  year.  No  more  immediate  fame  has 
been  achieved  by  a  literary  man :  the  value  of  the  article  was  recog- 
nized and  interest  in  its  author  aroused.  Invitations  poured  in  upon 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

him  from  all  sides.  He  became,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  the 
literary  lion  of  London. 

He  was  at  this  time  a  somewhat  pudgy,  unhandsome  young  man, 
vehement  and  overconfident  in  conversation,  but  blessed  with  an 
abounding  good  nature  which  won  him  many  friends.  Praed,  writing 
of  him,  says :  "  There  came  up  a  short  manly  figure,  marvellously 
upright,  with  a  bad  neck  cloth,  and  one  hand  in  his  waistcoat-pocket. 
Of  regular  beauty  he  had  little  to  boast ;  but  in  faces  where  there  is 
an  expression  of  great  power,  or  of  great  good-humor,  or  both,  you 
do  not  regret  its  absence."  In  conversation  he  tended  to  assume  the 
lead,  confident  of  his  own  powers.  Robinson,  who  met  him  about 
this  time,  jots  down  in  his  diary :  "  I  had  a  most  interesting  compan- 
ion in  young  Macaulay,  one  of  the  most  promising  of  the  rising  gen- 
eration I  have  seen  for  a  long  time.  .  .  .  Very  eloquent  and  cheerful. 
Overflowing  with  words  and  not  poor  in  thought." 

Just  at  this  period  Macaulay's  father,  who  had  spent  his  strength 
utterly  in  the  antislavery  cause  to  the  neglect  of  his  commercial  in- 
terests, found  himself  heavily  involved  financially.  The  sufficient 
income  which  had  so  long  supported  the  large  family  was  checked, 
Zachary  Macaulay  was  in  no  condition  to  straighten  out  his  affairs 
and  rebuild  his  fortune,  and  his  son,  who  had  lived  in  the  expectation 
of  a  comfortable  patrimony,  suddenly  faced  the  prospect  of  assuming 
the  burden  of  support  of  his  family.  His  attitude  at  this  juncture  is 
one  of  the  best  commentaries  on  his  character.  With  perfect  cheer- 
fulness he  took  up  the  task,  planning  to  pay  his  father's  debts,  clear 
up  the  tangle,  and  set  himself  in  a  way  to  rehabilitate  the  family 
fortune.  He  was  at  the  time  in  receipt  of  the  income  from  his  college 
fellowship,  amounting  to  about  three  hundred  pounds  a  year,  of  an 
amount  from  his  contributions  to  the  Edinburgh  Review  equal  to  as 
much  more,  and  a  few  hundred  pounds  additional  from  occasional 
offices  and  literary  work.  This  income  was  insufficient,  however,  for 
the  comfortable  maintenance  of  the  family  and  the  payment  of  his 
father's  debts.  He  cast  about,  therefore,  for  a  career  which  might 
give  greater  promise. 

Politics  had,  since  his  graduation  from  college,  divided  his  interest 
with  literature.  His  opportunity  for  entering  upon  a  political  career 
came  just  at  this  period.  Lord  Lansdowne  offered  him  a  seat  in  Par- 
liament for  the  pocket  borough  of  Calne  in  February  of  1830. 


xii  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Macaulay  entered  Parliament  at  the  most  dramatic  moment  of  a 
great  political  crisis  in  English  domestic  history.  From  1822  to  1829 
George  Canning  had  steered  the  Tory  ministry  into  the  paths  of  re- 
form after  the  long  years  of  repression  which  had  followed  the  fall  of 
Napoleon.  He  and  his  colleagues  had  achieved  a  merciful  revision  of 
the  criminal  code,  a  wise  reduction  of  certain  import  duties,  a  prac- 
tical nullification  of  the  outgrown  Navigation  Acts,  a  removal  of 
political  disabilities  from  certain  of  those  sects  not  holding  to  the 
tenets  of  the  established  church,  and  a  sliding  scale  of  tariff  on  im- 
ported grain.  It  was  an  era  of  reform,  and  Canning's  name  is  still 
revered  by  Englishmen.  The  greatest  reform,  however,  had  not  been 
attempted  by  Canning.  During  all  the  years  of  minor  reforms  the 
demand  for  the  reform  of  Parliament  had  been  steadily  increasing 
in  force  and  violence.  The  people  were  brought  to  realize  that  the 
ancient  and  outworn  system  of  parliamentary  representation  made 
liberal  and  popular  government  a  mockery.  The  appointment  of 
more  than  one  half  of  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
popular  house  of  Parliament,  was  directly  under  the  control  of  the 
great  landholders.  Populous  cities  in  the  manufacturing  area,  as 
Leeds  and  Birmingham,  which  had  grown  up  since  the  last  important 
change  in  representation,  had  no  representatives  at  all,  whereas  the 
ownership  of  the  green  mound  of  Old  Sarum  entitled  a  man  to  ap- 
point two  members  in  the  House.  Popular  agitation  had  overwhelm- 
ingly demanded  the  revision  of  the  representative  system,  directing  its 
attack  especially  against  the  "  rotten  boroughs."  The  question  was  the 
chief  issue  before  the  House  when  Macaulay  entered  political  life. 

Macaulay  was  a  Whig  and  played  an  important  part  in  the  Whig 
campaign  in  Parliament  which  passed  the  Reform  Bill.  He  made  his 
maiden  speech  in  the  House  April  5,  1830,  and  contributed  very 
notably  to  the  success  of  the  Reform  Bill  by  a  speech  March  2,  1831. 
From  1831  to  1834  he  devoted  himself  unsparingly  to  his  parliamen- 
tary work,  acquiring  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  forceful  and 
convincing  of  the  Whig  speakers.  He  played  a  leading  part  in  the 
debates.  His  contemporaries  bear  witness  to  his  power  and  success. 
Jeffrey  writes :  "  It  [Macaulay's  speech]  was  prodigiously  cheered, 
as  it  deserved,  and,  I  think,  puts  him  clearly  at  the  head  of  the  great 
speakers,  if  not  the  debaters,  of  the  House."  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
said,  "  Macaulay  and  Stanley  have  made  two  of  the  finest  speeches 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

ever  spoken  in  Parliament."  He  was  called  into  consultation  with 
the  party  leaders,  he  had  a  decided  influence  upon  the  progress  of 
the  liberal  policies,  he  became  one  of  the  chief  Whigs  in  the  House. 
And  he  had  the  chance  to  share  in  the  Whig  triumphs :  —  "  Then  again 
the  shouts  broke  out,  and  many  of  us  shed  tears,"  he  wrote  in  a  letter 
describing  the  parliamentary  division  on  the  bill ;  "  I  could  scarcely 
refrain.  And  the  jaw  of  Peel  fell ;  and  the  face  of  Twiss  was  as  the 
face  of  a  damned  soul;  and  Herries  looked  like  Judas  taking  his 
necktie  off  for  the  last  operation.  We  shook  hands,  and  clapped  each 
other  on  the  back,  and  went  out  laughing,  crying,  and  huzzaing  into 
the  lobby." 

His  parliamentary  distinction  kept  him  one  of  the  social  lions  of 
London.  He  was  dined  and  praised  by  all  of  his  own  party,  but  un- 
fortunately this  did  not  help  his  finances.  Although  he  knew  that  he 
was  laying  foundations  for  the  future,  the  present  expenses  embar- 
rassed him.  His  office  was  swept  away  in  a  governmental  house- 
cleaning,  his  fellowship  at  college  expired,  and  he  was  actually  forced 
at  one  time,  a  time  too  when  he  was  at  the  height  of  his  political 
fame,  to  sell  the  gold  medals  he  had  won  at  the  university  to  get 
money  for  his  immediate  needs.  His  reward  for  the  very  important 
part  he  had  taken  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  passage  of  the 
Reform  Bill  came  to  relieve  forever  his  financial  worries:  he  was 
appointed  in  1832  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Board  of  Con- 
trol of  Indian  affairs,  and  then,  in  1833,  a  member  of  the  Supreme 
Council  in  India  with  a  salary  of  ten  thousand  pounds  a  year.  In 
February,  1834,  Macaulay  and  his  beloved  sister  Hannah  sailed  for 
Calcutta. 

Macaulay  was  in  India  four  years.  During  that  time  his  influence 
upon  the  conduct  of  Indian  government  was  important  and  beneficial. 
By  some  of  his  policies  he  made  many  enemies  among  the  English 
residents  in  India,  but  his  reforms  stood  the  test  of  time  and  ex- 
perience and  enhanced  his  reputation  in  his  home  country.  He  was 
president  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Instruction  and  played  a  prin- 
cipal part  in  inaugurating  a  system  of  national  education ;  he  drew 
up  and  submitted  a  draft  of  a  penal  code  which,  years  later,  formed 
the  foundation  of  the  penal  code  of  India;  he  upheld  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  even  when  its  attacks  upon  him  personally  were  most  viru- 
lent ;  and  he  maintained  the  theory  of  the  equality  of  Europeans  and 


xiv  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

natives  before  the  law.  When  he  left  India  and  returned  to  England 
in  1838,  he  not  only  had  restored  the  impaired  fortunes  of  the 
Macaulay  family  but  had  immensely  raised  his  own  reputation  for 
practical  statesmanship  and  political  sagacity. 

The  years  that  we  have  treated  were  the  years  of  Macaulay's 
political  career:  in  the  years  that  followed  1838  we  see  Macaulay 
definitely  turning  his  ambitions  from  politics  to  literature.  He  had 
indeed  first  drawn  attention  to  himself  by  his  writings,  and  his  con- 
tributions to  the  great  Edinburgh  Review  had  continued  through  all 
the  intervening  years.  A  mere  enumeration  of  the  titles  and  dates  of 
the  most  important  of  these  contributions  will  indicate  his  industry  in 
writing :  "  Machiavelli,"  March,  1827  ;  "  Hallam's  Constitutional  His- 
tory," September,  1828;  "  Southey's  Colloquies,"  January,  1830; 
"Civil  Disabilities  of  Jews,"  January,  1831  ;  "  Byron,"  June,  1831  ; 
"  Croker's  Boswell,"  September,  1831;  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  and 
"  Hampden,"  December,  1831  ;  "  Burleigh,"  April,  1832;  "War  of 
the  Succession  in  Spain,"  January,  1833  ;  "  Walpole,"  October,  1833  ; 
"Lord  Chatham,"  January,  1834;  "Mackintosh's  History  of  the 
Revolution  in  England,  1688,"  July,  1835;  "Bacon,"  July,  1837; 
"  Sir  William  Temple,"  October,  1838.  His  attitude  toward  his  liter- 
ary work,  however,  during  these  years  he  expressed  in  a  letter  to 
Lord  Lansdowne  in  1833  :  "  Hitherto,  literature  has  been  merely  my 
relaxation  —  the  amusement  of  perhaps  a  month  in  the  year.  I  have 
never  considered  it  as  a  means  of  support.  I  have  chosen  my  own 
topics,  taken  my  own  time,  and  dictated  my  own  terms."  His  feel- 
ing had  changed  radically  upon  his  return  from  India :  "I  am  sick 
of  the  monotonous  succession  of  parties,  and  long  for  quiet  and  retire- 
ment," he  wrote  in  July.  1838.  to  Napier,  publisher  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  "  To  quit  politics  for  letters  is,  I  believe,  a  wise  choice." 
A  project  was  shaping  itself  in  his  thought  at  the  time  which  would, 
he  realized,  mean  long  years  of  study  and  labor. 

He  was  unable  at  once  to  carry  out  his  desires.  After  a  short  con- 
tinental tour,  his  party  demanded  his  continuance  in  political  life  for 
the  time  being.  The  influence  of  his  reputation  was  believed  to  be 
of  value  in  bolstering  up  the  failing  Whig  fortunes.  He  stood  for  a 
seat  at  Edinburgh,  was  elected  to  the  House  of  Commons  in  1839, 
and  a  few  months  later  accepted  the.  Secretaryship  of  War  with  a 
seat  in  the  cabinet.  His  reappearance  in  the  political  arena  was  not 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

due  to  any  desires  or  ambitions  of  his  own,  for  it  delayed  what  had 
become  his  chief  hope  and  exposed  him  once  again  to  the  bitter 
shafts  of  partisan  pens.  Fortunately  for  his  hopes,  the  cabinet  fell 
in  1841  and  Macaulay  was  released  from  his  unwelcome  honors. 
Although  he  remained  a  member  of  Parliament  for  the  rest  of  his  life 
with  the  exception  of  five  years  after  a  defeat  at  the  polls  in  1847, 
he  withdrew  more  and  more  from  parliamentary  activities  to  spend 
his  time  and  strength  in  his  literary  work. 

"  I  have  at  last  begun  my  historical  labors,"  he  wrote  to  Napier 
November  5,  1841  ;  "  I  can  hardly  say  with  how  much  interest  and 
delight.  I  really  do  not  think  that  there  is  in  our  literature  so  great 
a  void  as  that  which  I  am  trying  to  supply.  English  history,  from 
1688  to  the  French  Revolution,  is,  even  to  educated  people,  almost 
a  terra  incognita.  .  .  .  The  materials  for  an  amusing  narrative  are 
immense.  I  shall  not  be  satisfied  unless  I  produce  something  which 
shall  for  a  few  days  supersede  the  last  fashionable  novel  on  the  tables 
of  young  ladies."  In  the  opening  words  of  the  History  itself  he  out- 
lines again  the  period  'he  intends  to  cover :  "  I  purpose  to  write  the 
history  of  England  from  the  accession  of  King  James  the  Second 
down  to  a  time  which  is  within  the  memory  of  men  still  living." 

Although  work  on  his  History  withdrew  him  more  and  more  from 
public  life,  Macaulay  enjoyed  keenly  the  society  of  his  intimate 
friends.  He  was  always  eminently  a  social  being.  In  1839  he  had 
been  elected  a  member  of  The  Club,  the  lineal  descendant  of  The 
Club  of  Johnson  and  his  group,  and  with  the  company  there  assem- 
bled he  enjoyed  many  happy  hours.  We  have  from  Lord  Carlisle's 
journal  entries  showing  how  often  Macaulay  dined  or  breakfasted 
with  his  friends:  "June  27,  1843.  —  I  breakfasted  with  Hallam, 
John  Russell,  Macaulay,  Everett,  Van  de  Weyer,  Mr.  Hamilton, 
U.S.,  and  Mahon.  Never  were  such  torrents  of  good  talk  as  burst 
and  sputtered  over  from  Macaulay  and  Hallam."  "February  12, 
1849.  —  Breakfasted  with  Macaulay.  There  were  Van  de  Weyer, 
Hallam,  Charles  Austin,  Panizzi,  Colonel  Thure,  and  Dicky  Mimes." 
"May  25th  [1849].  —  Breakfasted  with  Rogers.  .  .  .  Macaulay  was 
very  severe  on  Cranmer."  "  October  nth  [1849].  — [Dinner  at  Lord 
Carlisle's.]  The  evening  went  off  very  cosily  and  pleasantly,  as  must 
almost  always  happen  with  Macaulay."  "  March  5th,  1850. — Dined 
at  The  Club.  Dr.  Holland  in  the  chair.  Lord  Lansdowne,  Bishop  of 


xvi  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

London,  Lord  Mahon,  Macaulay,  Milman,  Van  de  Weyer,  I,  David 
Dundas,  Lord  Harry  Vane,  Stafford  O'Brien.  .  .  .  Macaulay's  flow 
never  ceased  once  during  the  four  hours,  but  it  is  never  overbearing." 

Even  during  the  years  when  he  was  busy  on  his  History,  he  found 
time  to  make  important  contributions  to  the  Edinburgh  Review.  His 
essay  on  Gladstone  on  Church  and  State  appeared  in  the  number 
for  April,  1839  ;  on  Lord  Clive,  January,  1840  ;  on  Ranke's  "  History 
of  the  Popes,"  October,  1840 ;  on  Comic  Dramatists,  January,  1841  ; 
on  Lord  Holland,  July,  1841  ;  on  Warren  Hastings,  October,  1841  ; 
on  Frederick  the  Great,  April,  1842  ;  on  Madame  D'Arblay,  January, 
1843  ;  on  Addison,  July,  1843  ;  and  a  second  essay  on  Lord  Chatham, 
October,  1844. 

The  first  volumes  of  his  History  appeared  in  the  late  autumn  of 
1848.  Just  before  their  appearance  he  wrote  to  his  sister:  "The 
state  of  my  mind  is  this :  when  I  compare  my  book  with  what  I 
imagine  history  ought  to  be,  I  feel  dejected  and  ashamed ;  but  when 
I  compare  it  with  some  histories  which  have  a  high  repute,  I  feel  re- 
assured." These  volumes  won  an  immediate  success.  In  addition  to 
the  bulletins  from  his  English  publishers,  he  received  flattering  reports 
of  the  popularity  of  the  book  in  the  United  States :  Harper's  wrote 
him  in  the  spring  of  1849  announcing  the  sale  of  forty  thousand 
copies  and  predicting  that  within  three  months  the  number  would 
reach  the  enormous  total  of  two  hundred  thousand.  "  No  work,  of 
any  kind,"  this  publishing  house  wrote,  "  has  ever  so  completely 
taken  our  whole  country  by  storm."  Macaulay  comments  humor- 
ously in  some  of  his  letters  to  his  friend  Ellis  on  his  own  growing 
fame  :  "  At  last  I  have  attained  true  glory.  As  I  walked  through 
Fleet  Street  the  day  before  yesterday,  I  saw  a  copy  of  Hume  at  a 
book-seller's  window  with  the  following  label:  '  Only  £2  2S.  Hume's 
"  History  of  England,"  in  eight  volumes,  highly  valuable  as  an  intro- 
duction to  Macaulay.'  "  "  I  have  seen  the  hippopotamus,  both  asleep 
and  awake;  and  I  can  assure  you  that,  awake  or  asleep,  he  is  the 
ugliest  of  the  works  of  God.  But  you  must  hear  of  my  triumphs. 
Thackeray  swears  that  he  was  eye-witness  and  ear-witness  of  the 
proudest  event  of  my  life.  Two  damsels  were  just  about  to  pass  that 
door-way  which  we,  on  Monday,  in  vain  attempted  to  enter,  when  I 
was  pointed  out  to  them.  '  Mr.  Macaulay  ! '  cried  the  lovely  pair.  '  Is 
that  Mr.  Macaulay?  Never  mind  the  hippopotamus.'  And,  having 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

paid  a  shilling  to  see  Behemoth,  they  left  him  in  the  very  moment  at 
which  he  was  about  to  display  himself  to  them,  in  order  to  see  — 
but  spare  my  modesty." 

Honors  now  were  freely  offered  to  him.  In  November,  1848, 
he  was  elected  Lord  Rector  of  the  University  of  Glasgow ;  in  the 
same  year  he  was  made  a  fellow  of  the  Royal  Society;  in  1849  he 
was  offered  the  Professorship  of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge ;  in 
January,  1852,  an  attempt  was  made  to  gain  him  back  to  political 
life  by  the  offer  of  a  seat  in  the  cabinet,  but  this  he  refused ;  he  was 
created  a  member  of  the  Academies  of  Utrecht,  Munich,  and  Turin, 
and,  in  1853,  a  member  of  the  Institute  of  France,  and  a  Knight 
of  the  Prussian  Order  of  Merit;  in  June,  1854,  he  was  given  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Civil  Letters  by  Oxford,  and  was  chosen  presi- 
dent of  the  Philosophical  Institution  of  Edinburgh. 

In  the  meanwhile  he  had  begun  his  work  upon  the  succeeding 
volumes  of  his  History.  The  record  of  day  after  day  in  his  diary  for 
1849  begins  with  "  My  task,"  "  Did  my  task,"  etc.  After  1853  he 
worked  almost  uninterruptedly  upon  his  book,  withdrawing  even 
from  those  social  relaxations  which  had  delighted  him  for  so  many 
years.  November  21,  1855,  he  entered  in  his  diary  the  note:  "I 
looked  over  and  sent  off  the  last  twenty  pages.  My  work  is  done, 
thank  God !  and  now  for  the  result.  On  the  whole  I  think  that  it 
cannot  be  very  unfavorable."  The  date  of  publication  was  set  for 
Monday,  December  27th. 

The  third  and  fourth  volumes  came  up  to  the  expectations  aroused 
by  the  first  two.  The  criticisms  were  uniformly  favorable ;  the  sales 
were  enormous.  In  England  alone  within  a  generation  upwards  of 
one  hundred  and  forty  thousand  copies  were  sold ;  in  the  United 
States  "  no  book  has  ever  had  such  a  sale  "  wrote  Everett,  "  except 
the  Bible  and  one  or  two  school-books  of  universal  use  "  ;  in  foreign 
countries  the  sale  was  notably  great,  translations  being  made  into 
German,  Polish,  Danish,  Swedish,  Italian,  French,  Dutch,  Spanish, 
Hungarian,  Russian,  Bohemian,  and  Persian.  His  financial  suc- 
cess was  correspondingly  noteworthy.  He  wrote  in  his  journal  for 
March  7,  1857:  "Longman  came,  with  a  very  pleasant  announce- 
ment. He  and  his  partners  find  that  they  are  overflowing  with 
money,  and  think  that  they  cannot  invest  it  better  than  by  advancing 
to  me  —  on  the  usual  terms  of  course  —  part  of  what  will  be  due  to 


xviii  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

me  in  December.  We  agreed  that  they  shall  pay  twenty  thousand 
pounds  into  William's  bank  next  week.  What  a  sum  to  be  gained  by 
one  edition  of  a  book !  I  may  say,  gained  in  one  day.  But  that  was 
harvest-day.  The  work  had  been  near  seven  years  in  hand." 

Macaulay's  health,  which,  up  to  the  time  he  was  fifty,  had  been 
most  robust,  had  given  unmistakable  signs  of  weakening  before  the 
continual  strain.  As  he  began  the  third  installment  of  his  History, 
October  i,  1856,  he  was  forced  to  realize  that  it  was  improbable  he 
would  live  to  complete  the  design  he  had  announced  at  the  beginning. 
He  bent  every  effort  to  finish  the  life  of  his  great  hero,  William. 

In  1857  he  was  raised  to  the  peerage.  "  I  went,  very  low,  to 
dinner,"  he  notes  in  his  diary  for  August  28th,  "  and  had  hardly 
begun  to  eat  when  a  messenger  came  with  a  letter  from  Palmerston. 
An  offer  of  a  peerage ;  the  queen's  pleasure  already  taken.  I  was 
very  much  surprised.  Perhaps  no  such  offer  was  ever  made  without 
the  slightest  solicitation,  direct  or  indirect,  to  a  man  of  humble  origin 
and  moderate  fortune,  who  had  long  quitted  public  life.  I  had  no 
hesitation  about  accepting,  with  many  respectful  and  grateful  expres- 
sions ;  but  God  knows  that  the  poor  women  at  Delhi  and  Cawnpore 
are  more  in  my  thoughts  than  my  coronet.  It  was  necessary  for  me 
to  choose  a  title  off-hand.  I  determined  to  be  Baron  Macaulay  of 
Rothley!  I  was  born  there ;  I  have  lived  much  there ;  I  am  named 
from  the  family  which  long  had  the  manor ;  my  uncle  was  rector 
there." 

Macaulay  did  not  live  to  finish  even  that  part  of  the  task  he  had 
set  himself  after  he  felt  his  strength  failing.  Through  the  month  of 
December,  1859,  his  weakness  became  greater  daily,  resulting  in  a 
profound  melancholy.  An  entry  from  his  diary  will  show  his  condi- 
tion :  "December,  igth.  Still  intense  frost.  I  could  hardly  use  my 
razor  for  the  palpitation  of  the  heart.  I  feel  as  if  I  were  twenty 
years  older  since  last  Thursday  —  as  if  I  were  dying  of  old  age.  I 
am  perfectly  ready,  and  shall  never  be  readier.  A  month  more  of 
such  days  as  I  have  been  passing  of  late  would  make  me  impatient 
to  get  to  my  little  narrow  crib,  like  a  weary  factory  child."  He  died 
December  28th. 

January  9,  1860,  he  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey,  in  the 
Poets'  Corner,  near  the  statue  of  Addison.  The  stone  bears  the 
following  inscription : 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

THOMAS  BABINGTON,  LORD  MACAULAY 

BORN  AT  ROTHLEY  TEMPLE,  LEICESTERSHIRE, 

OCTOBER  25TH,  1800. 

DIED  AT  HOLLY  LODGE,  CAMPDEN  HILL, 

DECEMBER  28TH,  1859. 

"  His  body  is  buried  in  peace, 
But  his  name  liveth  for  evermore." 

II 
PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS 

Entering  political  life  at  thirty,  during  a  period  when  partisan  feel- 
ing was  exceptionally  bitter,  Macaulay  exposed  himself  to  attacks 
from  Tory  pens  and  Tory  tongues  throughout  his  whole  career.  His 
statesmanship  was  reviled,  his  speeches  scorned,  his  essays  censured, 
his  genius  belittled.  In  all  the  range  of  criticism,  however,  no  oppo- 
nent ever  found  a  point  of  attack  in  Macaulay's  character.  He  lived 
a  blameless  life  in  public  and  in  private.  Gladstone  has  well  summed 
up  his  virtues  by  a  categorical  denial  of  faults :  "  Was  he  envious  ? 
Never.  Was  he  servile  ?  No.  Was  he  insolent  ?  No.  Was  he  prodi- 
gal ?  No.  Was  he  avaricious  ?  No.  Was  he  selfish  ?  No.  Was  he 
idle  ?  The  question  is  ridiculous.  Was  he  false  ?  No ;  but  true  as 
steel  and  transparent  as  crystal.  Was  he  vain  ?  We  hold  that  he  was 
not.  At  every  point  in  the  ugly  list  he  stands  the  trial ;  and  though 
in  his  history  he  judges  mildly  some  sins  of  appetite  or  passion,  there 
is  no  sign  in  his  life,  or  in  his  remembered  character,  that  he  was 
compounding  for  what  he  was  inclined  to." 

A  bachelor,  Macaulay  lavished  upon  his  sisters  and  his  sisters' 
children  the  affection  which  he  might  have  conceived  for  a  family  of 
his  own.  When  the  project  of  a  seat  in  the  Indian  Council  came  up, 
requiring  residence  in  India  for  a  term  of  years,  he  wrote  to  his 
sister,  outlining  the  position  and  its  difficulties  and  begging  her  to 
accompany  him :  "  Whether  the  period  of  my  exile  shall  be  one  of 
comfort,  and,  after  the  first  shock,  even  of  happiness,  depends  on 
you.  If,  as  I  expect,  this  offer  shall  be  made  to  me,  will  you  go  with 
me  ?  I  know  what  a  sacrifice  I  ask  of  you.  I  know  how  many  dear 


xx  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  precious  ties  you  must,  for  a  time,  sunder.  I  know  that  the 
splendor  of  the  Indian  Court,  and  the  gayeties  of  that  brilliant 
society  of  which  you  would  be  one  of  the  leading  personages,  have 
no  temptation  for  you.  I  can  bribe  you  only  by  telling  you  that, 
if  you  will  go  with  me,  I  will  love  you  better  than  I  love  you  now, 
if  I  can."  His  nephew  and  biographer  bears  personal  witness  to 
Macaulay's  affection  for  children.  "  Uncle  Tom  "  was  an  avuncular 
deity  to  a  devoted  group  of  nephews  and  nieces,  who,  all  innocent  of 
his  fame  and  of  the  value  of  his  time,  carried  him  off  to  the  Zoo,  to 
the  botanical  gardens,  or  to  the  museums  with  them.  His  tales  of 
mythical  heroes  put  a  new  life  into  the  statues  or  the  paintings 
in  the  museums,  and  his  descriptions  of  unknown  lands  lent  a  new 
interest  to  the  giraffe  and  the  hippopotamus.  "  He  was,  beyond  all 
comparison,  the  best  of  playfellows,"  writes  Trevelyan,  "unrivaled 
in  the  invention  of  games,  and  never  wearied  of  repeating  them.  He 
had  an  inexhaustible  repertory  of  small  dramas  for  the  benefit  of  his 
nieces,  in  which  he  sustained  an  endless  variety  of  parts  with  a  skill 
that,  at  any  rate,  was  sufficient  for  his  audience.  .  .  .  He  was  never 
so  happy  as  when  he  could  spend  an  afternoon  in  taking  his  nieces 
and  nephews  a  round  of  London  sights,  until,  to  use  his  favorite  ex- 
pression, they  '  could  not  drag  one  leg  after  another.'  If  he  had  been 
able  to  have  his  own  way,  the  treat  would  have  recurred  at  least 
twice  a  week.  On  these  occasions  we  drove  into  London  in  time  for 
a  sumptuous  midday  meal,  at  which  everything  that  we  liked  best 
was  accompanied  by  oysters,  caviare,  and  olives,  some  of  which  deli- 
cacies he  invariably  provided  with  the  sole  object  of  seeing  us  reject 
them  with  contemptuous  disgust.  Then  off  we  set  under  his  escort, 
in  summer  to  the  bears  and  lions ;  in  winter  to  the  Panorama  of 
Waterloo,  to  the  Colosseum  in  Regent's  Park,  or  to  the  enjoyment 
of  the  delicious  terror  inspired  by  Madame  Tussaud's  Chamber  of 
Horrors.  When  the  more  attractive  exhibitions  had  been  exhausted 
by  too  frequent  visits,  he  would  enliven  with  his  irrepressible  fun  the 
dreary  propriety  of  the  Polytechnic,  or  would  lead  us  through  the 
lofty  corridors  of  the  British  Museum,  making  the  statues  live  and 
the  busts  speak  by  the  spirit  and  color  of  his  innumerable  anecdotes, 
paraphrased  off-hand  from  the  pages  of  Plutarch  and  Suetonius." 

The  most  astonishing  characteristics  of  Macaulay's  mind  were  an 
abnormal  memory,  a  voracious  and  indiscriminating  appetite  coupled 


INTRODUCTION  xxi 

with  a  most  effective  digestion,  and  an  extraordinary  capacity  for 
work.  The  words  "  appetite  "  and  "  digestion  "  are  used  advisedly. 
He  devoured  everything  in  the  line  of  reading,  from  philosophy 
and  the  classics  down  to  indescribable  trash  and  nonsense;  but 
when  he  wrote,  he  sifted  the  vast  amount  of  material  stored  in  his 
memory  until  only  the  needful  facts  for  his  subject  remained.  Re- 
markable tales  are  told  of  his  memory.  Even  when  a  mere  child,  his 
memory  "  retained  without  effort  the  phraseology  of  the  book  which 
he  had  been  last  engaged  on."  He  learned  Scott's  "  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel "  by  heart  and  the  greater  part  of  "  Marmion."  His  own 
childish  compositions  were,  of  course,  wholly  memorized.  As  a  grown 
man,  Macaulay  was  proud  of  his  memory  and  somewhat  impatient 
with  men  who  confessed  a  poor  one.  He  was  always  ready  to  accept 
a  test :  "  '  Can  you  say  your  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  ? '  '  Any 
fool,'  said  Macaulay,  '  could  say  his  Archbishops  of  Canterbury  back- 
ward ' ;  and  he  went  off  at  a  score,  drawing  breath  only  once  in  order 
to  remark  on  the  oddity  of  there  having  been  both  an  Archbishop 
Bancroft  and  an  Archbishop  Bancroft,  until  Sir  David  stopped  him 
at  Cranmer."  "  His  memory  is  prodigious,"  writes  Charles  Sumner, 
"  surpassing  anything  I  have  ever  known,  and  he  pours  out  its  stores 
with  an  instructive  but  dinning  prodigality.  He  passes  from  the 
minutest  dates  of  English  history  or  biography  to  a  discussion  of 
the  comparative  merits  of  different  ancient  orators,  and  gives  you 
whole  strophes  from  the  dramatists  at  will."  This  memory  he  stored 
with  wide  reading.  The  enumeration  of  his  reading  for  a  given  period 
will  give  the  best  illustration  of  the  fact.  To  his  friend  Ellis  he  writes 
just  after  his  arrival  in  India :  "  My  power  of  finding  amusement 
without  companions  was  pretty  well  tried  on  my  voyage.  I  read  in- 
satiably ;  the  '  Iliad '  and  '  Odyssey,'  Virgil,  Horace,  Caesar's  '  Com- 
mentaries,' Bacon,  '  De  Augmentis,'  Dante,  Petrarch,  Ariosto,  Tasso, 
'  Don  Quixote,'  Gibbon's  '  Rome,'  Mill's  '  India,'  all  the  seventy  vol- 
umes of  Voltaire,  Sismondi's  '  History  of  France/  and  the  seven 
thick  folios  of  the  '  Biographia  Britannica.'  "  Again,  to  Ellis  in  1835, 
he  writes :  "  I  have  cast  up  my  reading  account,  and  brought  it  to 
the  end  of  the  year  1835.  .  .  .  During  the  last  thirteen  months  I 
have  read  ^tschylus  twice ;  Sophocles  twice  ;  Euripides  once ;  Pindar 
twice  ;  Callimachus  ;  Apollonius  Rhodius  ;  Quintus  Calaber ;  Theoc- 
ritus twice ;  Herodotus ;  Thucydides ;  almost  all  Xenophon's  works ; 


xxii  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

almost  all  Plato ;  Aristotle's  '  Politics,'  and  a  good  deal  of  his  '  Orga- 
non,'  besides  dipping  elsewhere  in  him ;  the  whole  of  Plutarch's 
1  Lives ' ;  about  half  of  Lucian ;  two  or  three  books  of  Athenaeus ; 
Plautus  twice ;  Terence  twice  ;  Lucretius  twice  ;  Catullus ;  Tibullus  ; 
Propertius  ;  Lucan  ;  Statius  ;  Silius  Italicus  ;  Livy  ;  Velleius  Pater- 
culus ;  Sallust ;  Caesar ;  and,  lastly,  Cicero." 

Macaulay  was  not  fond  of  society  in  general,  although  his  position 
at  times  made  heavy  demands  upon  him.  He  was,  however,  extremely 
fond  of  the  society  of  his  few  intimate  friends  and  seized  all  oppor- 
tunities of  meeting  with  them.  All  reports  of  his  appearance  in 
society,  at  dinners,  etc.,  emphasize  the  free  flow  of  his  conversation, 
at  which  the  Tories  are  frankly  bored,  whereas  the  Whigs  duly  marvel. 
For  example,  Lord  Brougham  writes :  "  He  is  absolutely  renowned 
in  society  as  the  greatest  bore  that  ever  yet  appeared.  I  have  seen 
people  come  in  from  Holland  House,  breathless  and  knocked  up, 
and  able  to  say  nothing  but  '  Oh  dear,  oh  mercy.'  What 's  the 
matter  ?  being  asked.  '  Oh,  Macaulay.'  Then  every  one  said,  '  That 
accounts  for  it  —  you  're  lucky  to  be  alive.'  "  And  Wilson's  descrip- 
tion of  him  as  "an  ugly,  cross-made,  splay-footed,  shapeless  little 
dumpling  of  a  fellow  "  and  the  statement  that  "  what  he  says  is  sub- 
stantially, of  course,  mere  stuff  and  nonsense  "  are  famous.  But  both 
these  men  were  Tories  and  their  Tory  convictions  had  no  little  effect 
upon  their  opinions  of  a  leading  Whig  orator.  He  looked  different  to 
Whigs.  "Went  to  Bowood  to  dinner,"  writes  Tom  Moore;  "Macaulay 
wonderful ;  never,  perhaps,  was  there  combined  so  much  talent  with 
so  marvellous  a  memory.  To  attempt  to  record  his  conversation  one 
must  be  as  wonderfully  gifted  with  memory  as  himself."  Hawthorne 
in  his  "  English  Note- Books  "  records  the  appearance  and  manner  of 
Macaulay  in  1856:  "He  was  a  man  of  large  presence  —  a  portly 
personage,  gray-haired,  but  scarcely  as  yet  aged ;  and  his  face  had  a 
remarkable  intelligence,  not  vivid,  not  sparkling,  but  conjoined  with 
great  quietude,  —  and  if  it  gleamed  or  brightened  at  one  time  more 
than  another,  it  was  like  the  sheen  over  a  broad  surface  of  the  sea. 
There  was  a  somewhat  careless  self-possession,  large  and  broad 
enough  to  be  called  dignity.  ...  I  began  to  listen  to  his  conversa- 
tion, but  he  did  not  talk  a  great  deal, — contrary  to  his  usual  custom; 
for  I  am  told  he  is  apt  to  engross  all  the  talk  to  himself." 

Trevelyan  remarks  that  Macaulay  dressed  badly  but  not  poorly,  and 
recalls  the  great  number  of  articles  of  apparel  his  uncle  possessed. 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

Grenville  Murray  in  his  "  Personal  Reminiscences  "  tells  of  one  occa- 
sion when  Macaulay,  an  undergraduate  in  Cambridge,  received  from 
one  of  the  dons  an  invitation  to  dinner.  Macaulay  was  about  to  dis- 
patch his  letter  of  regrets  when  "  some  comrades  burst  into  his  room, 
and  being  informed  of  the  correspondence  pending,  told  Macaulay 
that '  he  must  accept.'  As  the  invitation  was  for  that  very  day,  they 
further  decided  that  Macaulay  must  be  washed,  scrubbed  for  the  occa- 
sion, for  in  those  days  he  was  excessively  negligent  of  his  personal 
appearance.  And  the  thing  was  done  vi  et  armis."  This  carelessness 
in  dress  characterized  Macaulay  all  his  life. 

Macaulay  was  notably  charitable  in  nature.  It  is  recorded  that  one 
of  the  last  acts  of  his  life  was  to  dictate  a  letter  to  a  poor  curate  and 
inclose  twenty-five  pounds.  When  his  works  had  made  him  famous, 
appeals  for  help  reached  him  from  all  sources.  His  diary  records  his 

generosity  :  "  H called.  I  gave  him  three  guineas  for  his  library 

subscription.  I  lay  out  very  little  money  with  so  much  satisfaction. 
For  three  guineas  a  year,  I  keep  a  very  good,  intelligent  young  fellow 
out  of  a  great  deal  of  harm  and  do  him  a  great  deal  of  good."  "  I 

have  sent  her  [Mrs.  Z ]  twenty  pounds ;  making  up  what  she 

has  had  from  me  within  a  few  months  to  a  hundred  and  thirty 
pounds."  "  I  sent  some  money  to  Miss  -  — ,  a  middling  writer, 
whom  I  relieved  some  time  ago.  I  have  been  giving  too  fast  of  late 
—  forty  pounds  in  four  or  five  days.  I  must  pull  in  a  little." 

We  can  best  sum  up  the  personal  side  of  Macaulay  in  the  words 
of  Frederic  Harrison :  "  In  one  thing  all  agree  —  critics,  public, 
friends,  and  opponents.  Macaulay's  was  a  life  of  purity,  honor, 
courage,  generosity,  affection,  was  manly  perseverance,  almost  with- 
out a  stain  or  defect.  .  .  .  We  know  his  nature  and  his  career  as  well 
as  we  know  any  man's;  and  we  find  it  on  every  side  wholesome, 
just,  and  right." 

Ill 
MACAULAY'S   PROSE  WORKS 

It  would  be  an  interesting  and  perhaps  not  wholly  uninstructive 
task  to  collect  in  parallel  columns  a  series  of  judgments  of  Macaulay's 
work,  placing  to  the  one  side  the  eulogies,  and  to  the  other  the  cen- 
sures. Rarely  have  the  critics  who  pretend  to  utter  the  dictates  of 
taste  been  so  confounded  by  their  own  diversity.  On  the  one  hand 


xxiv  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Augustine  Birrell  says :  "  Macaulay's  style  —  his  much-praised  style 
—  is  ineffectual  for  the  purpose  of  telling  the  truth  about  anything. 
It  is  splendid,  but  splendide  mendax,  and  in  Macaulay's  case  the  style 
was  the  man."  Morison  declares  :  "  The  chief  complaint  —  and  it  is 
sufficiently  grave  —  is  of  a  constant  and  pervading  want  of  depth, 
either  of  thought  or  sentiment.  .  .  .  He  never  has  anything  to  say 
on  the  deeper  aspects  and  relations  of  life."  William  Watson  writes, 
"  The  vice  of  Macaulay's  style  is  its  unrelieved  facility,  its  uniform 
velocity  "  ;  and  Frederic  Harrison  adds,  "  Macaulay  is  brilliant  and 
emphatic,  but  we  weary  at  last  of  his  everlasting  staccato  on  the 
trumpet."  On  the  other  hand  we  may  set  over  against  these  opinions 
the  words  of  Freeman :  "  First  of  all,  Macaulay  is  a  model  of  style  — 
of  style  not  merely  as  a  kind  of  literary  luxury,  but  of  style  in  its 
practical  aspect.  .  .  .  Every  one  who  wishes  to  write  clear  and  pure 
English  will  do  well  to  become,  not  Macaulay's  ape,  but  Macaulay's 
disciple.  Every  writer  of  English  will  do  well,  not  only  to  study 
Macaulay's  writings,  but  to  bear  them  in  his  mind,  and  very  often  to 
ask  himself,  not  whether  his  writing  is  like  Macaulay's  writing,  but 
whether  his  writing  is  such  as  Macaulay  would  have  approved." 
Hunt  adds :  "  The  one  who  denies  his  claim  to  be  ranked  among  the 
first  examples  of  English  style,  must  see  to  it  that  he  be  prepared  to 
maintain  his  difficult  position.  .  .  .  There  are  but  few  representative 
writers  of  English  whose  style  so  happily  avoids  the  extreme  of 
pedantry  on  the  one  hand,  and  that  of  purism  on  the  other."  And 
in  an  excellent  summary  Miss  Vida  D.  Scudder  states :  "  He  had  a 
wonderful  memory,  unfailing  industry,  a  vivid  conception  of  the  past 
and  a  unique  style  ;  and  he  was  thoroughly  interested  in  his  subject. 
He  said  the  things  that  the  most  intelligent  people  thought,  so  elo- 
quently and  incisively  that  they  began  at  once  to  pride  themselves  on 
their  own  cleverness."  Thus  both  in  point  of  matter  and  of  style  do 
the  critics  differ. 

However  certain  critics  may  carp  at  Macaulay's  work,  it  is  certain 
that  it  has  stood  that  one  test  which  is  the  final  test  of  worth,  namely, 
the  test  of  time.  Macaulay  has  been  dead  now  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  but  his  essays  and  his  History  are  still  widely  read  and  his 
prose  has  a  notable  place  of  honor  in  the  realm  of  English  letters. 
Any  historian  of  English  literature  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century  who  did  not  give  a  prominent  place  to  Macaulay  would  lay 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

himself  open  to  the  most  severe  criticism.  He  has  won  his  way  to  a 
firm  place  in  the  hearts  of  readers  of  English  the  world  over.  "  A 
recent  traveler  in  Australia  informs  us,"  says  John  Morley,  "  that  the 
three  books  which  he  found  on  every  squatter's  shelf,  and  which  at 
last  he  knew  before  he  crossed  the  threshold  that  he  should  be  sure 
to  find,  were  Shakespeare,  the  Bible,  and  Macaulay's  Essays." 

The  severest  critics  of  Macaulay  censure  him  most  often  for  the 
lack  of  virtues  which  he  never  himself  pretended  to  possess.  Macaulay 
did  not  aim  to  be  a  subtle  analyst,  bringing  out  with  delicate  artistry 
the  shadowy  nuances  of  words.  He  was  rather  a  typical  plain  blunt 
Englishman  writing  for  people  of  his  own  type.  He  never  tried  to 
convey  to  his  readers  an  appreciation  of  the  inexplicable  mysteries 
of  life,  of  the  depths  of  passion  or  the  heights  of  self-sacrifice ;  spec- 
ulative philosophy  held  no  attractions  for  him.  As  Emerson  has 
expressed  it :  "  The  brilliant  Macaulay,  who  expresses  the  tone  of 
the  English  governing  classes  of  the  day,  explicitly  teaches  that  good 
means  good  to  eat,  good  to  wear,  material  commodity ;  that  the  glory 
of  modern  philosophy  is  its  direction  on  '  fruit ' ;  to  yield  economical 
inventions;  and  that  its  merit  is  to  avoid  ideas  and  avoid  morals." 
It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Macaulay  acted  and  wrote  as  though  life 
was  to  him  an  open  book  easily  read  and  understood.  Here  again, 
Macaulay  was  the  typical  Englishman  writing  for  the  people  of  his 
own  class.  Half  jestingly,  he  gave  his  ideal  in  writing  his  History  as 
the  creation  of  an  account  which  should  replace  upon  young  ladies' 
tables  the  latest  fashionable  novel.  His  degree  of  success  in  reaching 
this  ideal  is  nearly  the  measure  of  his  degree  of  success  in  accom- 
plishing what  he  purposed  to  do  in  all  his  writing.  The  faults  which 
the  critics  point  out  in  his  work  are  faults  inherent  in  the  nature  of 
the  man,  are  failures  to  do  something  which  he  never  tried  to  do. 

As  a  typical  Englishman  writing  for  others  of  his  class,  Macaulay 
excels  by  the  bluntness,  directness,  simplicity,  and  interest  of  his  nar- 
rative. His  work  is  instinct  with  manliness,  with  those  virtues  which 
we  associate  with  the  English  character.  The  judgments  are  always 
moral  judgments ;  courage  and  patriotism  breathe  from  every  page ; 
deeds  of  excitement  and  daring  appeal  to  him  as  to  a  boy  and  are 
recounted  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  youth.  With  bold  partisanship  he 
tends  to  exaggerate  the  faults  of  his  villains  and  the  virtues  of  his 
heroes,  and  carries  his  narrative  on  with  a  never  ceasing  rush  and  a 


xxvi  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

never  failing  interest.  History  had  never  been  written  that  way  before. 
It  is  a  curious  and  noteworthy  fact  that  a  group  of  workingmen  moved 
a  vote  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Macaulay  for  having  written  a  history  that 
they  could  understand  and  appreciate. 

The  supreme  merit  of  Macaulay's  style  is  its  clearness.  As  Carlyle 
may  be  called  the  Browning  of  prose,  Macaulay  is  its  Tennyson. 
The  reader  may  go  over  a  sentence  or  a  paragraph  to  admire  its 
structure,  but  he  need  never  do  so  to  learn  its  meaning.  Macaulay 
himself  was  especially  proud  of  this  characteristic  of  his  writing. 
His  nephew  relates  his  pleasure  at  hearing  of  a  man  who  commented 
upon  the  fact  that  he  had  read  the  entire  published  volumes  of  the 
History  and  had  been  forced  to  reread  only  one  sentence  for  its 
meaning. 

This  clearness  is  obtained  by  the  repeated  use  of  the  simplest  type 
of  paragraph  development.  Macaulay's  normal  paragraph  begins 
with  a  sentence  which,  like  a  good  signboard,  points  the  way  directly 
to  all  that  follows  in  that  paragraph.  The  first  sentence  is  truly  the 
topic  sentence;  the  following  sentences  in  the  paragraph  are  devel- 
opment, illustration,  or  proof  of  the  statement  given  in  the  first. 

Macaulay  was  not  only  clear,  but  uniformly  interesting.  He  was, 
in  the  first  place,  a  natural-born  story-teller,  gifted  with  marvelous 
facility  in  the  selection  of  the  strikingly  important  facts  in  his  narra- 
tive, and  with  the  touch  of  genius  in  the  selection  of  the  phrases  in 
which  he  presented  these  facts.  And  in  the  second  place,  he  was  a 
most  careful  artist  in  his  writing,  using  all  the  devices  of  antithesis, 
balanced  sentences,  abrupt  transitions,  and  climax  to  relieve  the  pos- 
sible monotony  of  his  prose.  In  a  study  of  the  English  paragraph, 
Edwin  H.  Lewis  writes :  "  The  popular  impression  that  Macaulay  is 
the  best  of  paragraphers  is  probably  not  far  from  the  truth.  The 
great  rhetorician  bestowed  unlimited  pains  upon  his  paragraphs,  and 
no  preceding  writer  began  to  equal  him  in  conscious  appreciation  of 
the  importance  of  that  structure.  His  unity  is  rhetorical,  rather  than 
logical ;  but  as  such  it  is  nearly  always  unimpeachable.  ...  In  the 
matter  of  proportion  by  bulk  he  is  nearly  always  admirable.  He 
knows  his  principal  point,  and  it  is  on  this  that  he  enlarges.  His 
emphasis-proportion  is  consciously  paragraphic.  He  reveals  very 
great  variability  in  sentence-length,  and  drives  home  his  main  topic 
and  his  main  conclusion  in  simple  sentences.  When  he  masses  clauses 


INTRODUCTION  xxvii 

it  is  to  relieve  each  of  emphasis  and  show  the  unity  of  the  group  as 
amplifying  some  previous  terse  generalization." 

Furthermore,  he  was  a  past  master  of  the  art  of  illustrative  com- 
parison for  the  adornment  of  his  theme.  A  thorough  master  of  the 
literature  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  and  of  the  modern  litera- 
ture of  France,  Italy,  and  England,  and  possessed  of  a  miraculous 
memory,  Macaulay  drew  upon  his  vast  storehouse  to  enliven  his  nar- 
rative. One  critic  (Payn)  accuses  Macaulay  of  being  "  the  writer  who 
has  done  most,  without  I  suppose  intending  it,  to  promote  hypocrisy 
in  literature.  .  .  .  His  '  every  schoolboy  knows  '  has  frightened  thou- 
sands into  pretending  to  know  authors  with  whom  they  have  not 
even  a- bowing  acquaintance."  The  presumption  of  intention  in  pro- 
moting hypocrisy  is,  of  course,  absurd;  Macaulay  never  throughout 
his  whole  life  realized  how  much  more  familiar  he  was  with  the  liter- 
atures of  ancient  and  modern  times  than  were  his  contemporaries. 
No  writer  has  drawn  with  greater  facility  or  better  judgment  upon 
these  literatures  for  the  illustration  of  his  own  themes. 

Another  means  by  which  he  maintained  continued  interest  in  his 
narrative  was  by  the  use  of  anecdotes  in  the  identification  of  each 
place,  incident,  or  personage  in  his  account.  Says  Morison :  "  He 
hardly  ever  mentions  a  site,  a  town,  a  castle,  a  manor-house,  he 
rarely  introduces  even  a  subordinate  character,  without  bringing  in  a 
picturesque  anecdote,  an  association,  a  reminiscence  out  of  his  bound- 
less stores  of  knowledge,  which  sparkles  like  a  gem  on  the  texture  of 
his  narrative.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  skill  with  which  these  little 
vignettes  are  thrown  in,  and  they  are  incessant ;  yet  they  never 
seem  to  be  in  the  way,  or  to  hinder  the  main  effect."  These  little 
"  vignettes  "  serve  to  attach  to  the  place  or  the  personage  a  unique 
and  individual  interest.  The  reader  feels  the  warmth  of  an  intimate 
acquaintance  at  once. 

Macaulay  writes  always  as  a  special  pleader,  an  attitude  derived  per- 
haps from  his  law  training  and  his  services  in  Parliament.  He  is  argu- 
ing a  case  before  the  jury  of  his  countrymen  ;  he  frames  his  argument 
for  their  ears ;  he  adjusts  his  style  to  their  order.  He  lays  himself 
open  to  the  charges  of  partisanship—  "historiographer  in  chief  to 
the  Whigs,  and  the  great  prophet  of  Whiggery,"  James  Thomson 
called  him  —  and  to  the  unpardonable  sin  (in  the  eyes  of  literary 
critics)  of  commonplaceness.  He  gained  and  has  retained,  however, 


xxviii  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  attention  of  a  greater  audience  than  any  other  English  historian. 
He  made  the  seventeen  years  of  which  he  wrote  the  best-known 
period  of  English  history.  He  created  the  historical  essay,  a  new 
type  in  literature.  If  he  was  partisan,  his  partisanship  lent  eloquence 
and  fervor  to  his  language ;  it  did  not  materially  affect  the  truth  of 
his  account.  He  wrote  a  new  kind  of  history,  a  kind  which  has  been 
brilliantly  and,  perhaps,  more  scientifically  developed  since  his  own 
day  but  which,  in  its  essential  characteristics,  has  not  been  bettered. 
He  had  the  historian's  gift  of  perspective,  of  seeing  and  presenting 
historical  incidents  in  their  proper  mutual  relation.  He  painted  on  a 
huge  canvas  and  kept  all  parts  of  his  picture  in  view  at  once. 

Above  all,  Macaulay  was  always  supremely  patriotic.  He  was  an 
Englishman,  conscious  and  proud  of  the  greatness  of  his  race  and  its 
traditions  of  political  liberty.  His  essays  and  his  History  are  both  in- 
herently a  testimony  to  the  true  fame  ot  England  and  of  English 
political  institutions.  "  He  had,"  writes  Herbert  Paul,  "  an  almost 
passionate  belief  in  the  progress  of  society  and  in  the  greatness  of 
England."  And  another  critic  in  somewhat  similar  strain  declares 
that  "  with  Macaulay  the  love  of  country  was  a  passion.  How  he 
kindles  at  each  stirring  or  plaintive  memory  in  the  annals  he  was  so 
glad  to  record." 

So  Macaulay  is  wholesome  reading.  He  is  not  endowed  with  a 
sense  of  the  mystery  of  things  which  tempts  speculative  philosophy ; 
he  was  blunt,  direct,  and  plain  rather  than  delicate  and  complex ;  he 
used  the  eloquence  of  a  partisan.  With  all  these  failings,  however,  he 
made  a  definite  selected  bit  of  the  past  alive  for  us  to-day  as  no  other 
English  historian  had  done  before  him.  In  his  short  essay  on  History 
he  set  forth  his  ideals  of  how  history  should  be  written ;  in  his  "  History 
of  England  "  —  and,  indeed,  in  his  historical  essays  —  he  attempted 
to  reach  his  own  ideal.  With  infinite  patience  and  labor  he  collated 
his  materials  and  framed  his  narrative.  His  success  was  deserved. 
"  Macaulay  is  absolutely  unrivalled  in  the  art  of  arranging  and  com- 
bining his  facts,  and  of  presenting  in  a  clear  and  vigorous  narrative 
the  spirit  of  the  epoch  he  treats,"  says  McMaster,  and  with  this 
judgment  we  can  all  agree. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  PROSE 
OF  MACAULAY 

MILTON 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  1823,  Mr.  Lemon,  deputy 
keeper  of  the  state  papers,  in  the  course  of  his  researches 
among  the  presses  of  his  office,  met  with  a  large  Latin  manu- 
script. With  it  were  found  corrected  copies  of  the  foreign 
despatches  written  by  Milton  while  he  filled  the  office  of  Sec- 
retary, and  several  papers  relating  to  the  Popish  Trials  and 
the  Rye-house  Plot.  The  whole  was  wrapped  up  in  an  enve- 
lope, superscribed  To  Mr.  Skinner,  Merchant.  On  examina- 
tion, the  large  manuscript  proved  to  be  the  long-lost  Essay  on 
the  Doctrines  of  Christianity,  which,  according  to  Wood  and 
Toland,  Milton  finished  after  the  Restoration,  and  deposited 
with  Cyriac  Skinner.  Skinner,  it  is  well  known,  held  the  same 
political  opinions  with  his  illustrious  friend.  It  is  therefore 
probable,  as  Mr.  Lemon  conjectures,  that  he  may  have  fallen 
under  the  suspicions  of  the  Government  during  that  persecu- 
tion of  the  Whigs  which  followed  the  dissolution  of  the  Oxford 
parliament,  and  that,  in  consequence  of  a  general  seizure  of 
his  papers,  this  work  may  have  been  brought  to  the  office  in 
which  it  has  been  found.  But  whatever  the  adventures  of  the 
manuscript  may  have  been,  no  doubt  can  exist  that  it  is  a 
genuine  relic  of  the  great  poet. 

Mr.  Sumner  who  was  commanded  by  his  Majesty  to  edit 
and  translate  the  treatise,  has  acquitted  himself  of  his  task  in 
a  manner  honourable  to  his  talents  and  to  his  character.  His 
version  is  not  indeed  very  easy  or  elegant ;  but  it  is  entitled 
to  the  praise  of  clearness  and  fidelity.  His  notes  abound  with 


2  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

interesting  quotations,  and  have  the  rare  merit  of  really  eluci- 
dating the  text.  The  preface  is  evidently  the  work  of  a  sensi- 
ble and  candid  man,  firm  in  his  own  religious  opinions,  and 
tolerant  towards  those  of  others. 

The  book  itself  will  not  add  much  to  the  fame  of  Milton. 
It  is,  like  all  his  Latin  works,  well  written,  though  not  exactly 
in  the  style  of  the  prize  essays  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
There  is  no  elaborate  imitation  of  classical  antiquity,  no  scrupu- 
lous purity,  none  of  the  ceremonial  cleanness  which  character- 
ises the  diction  of  our  academical  Pharisees.  The  author  does 
not  attempt  to  polish  and  brighten  his  composition  into  the 
Ciceronian  gloss  and  brilliancy.  He  does  not  in  short  sacrifice 
sense  and  spirit  to  pedantic  refinements.  The  nature  of  his 
subject  compelled  him  to  use  many  words 

That  would  have  made  Quintilian  stare  and  gasp. 

But  he  writes  with  as  much  ease  and  freedom  as  if  Latin  were 
his  mother  tongue ;  and,  where  he  is  least  happy,  his  failure 
seems  to  arise  from  the  carelessness  of  a  native,  not  from  the 
ignorance  of  a  foreigner.  We  may  apply  to  him  what  Denham 
with  great  felicity  says  of  Cowley :  "He  wears  the  garb,  but 
not  the  clothes  of  the  ancients." 

Throughout  the  volume  are  discernible  the  traces  of  a  power- 
ful and  independent  mind,  emancipated  from  the  influence  of 
authority,  and  devoted  to  the  search  of  truth.  Milton  professes 
to  form  his  system  from  the  Bible  alone ;  and  his  digest  of 
scriptural  texts  is  certainly  among  the  best  that  have  appeared. 
But  he  is  not  always  so  happy  in  his  inferences  as  in  his 
citations. 

Some  of  the  heterodox  doctrines  which  he  avows  seemed  to 
have  excited  considerable  amazement,  particularly  his  Arian- 
ism,  and  his  theory  on  the  subject  of  polygamy.  Yet  we  can 
scarcely  conceive  that  any  person  could  have  read  the  Paradise 
Lost  without  suspecting  him  of  the  former ;  nor  do  we  think 
that  any  reader,  acquainted  with  the  history  of  his  life,  ought 
to  be  much  startled  at  the  latter.  The  opinions  which  he  has 


MILTON  3 

expressed  respecting  the  nature  of  the  Deity,  the  eternity  of 
matter,  and  the  observation  of  the  Sabbath,  might,  we  think, 
have  caused  more  just  surprise. 

But  we  will  not  go  into  the  discussion  of  these  points.  The 
book,  were  it  far  more  orthodox  or  far  more  heretical  than  it  is, 
would  not  much  edify  or  corrupt  the  present  generation.  The 
men  of  our  time  are  not  to  be  converted  or  perverted  by  quartos. 
A  few  more  days,  and  this  essay  will  follow  the  Defensio  Populi 
to  the  dust  and  silence  of  the  upper  shelf.  The  name  of  its 
author,  and  the  remarkable  circumstances  attending  its  publica- 
tion, will  secure  to  it  a  certain  degree  of  attention.  For  a  month 
or  two  it  will  occupy  a  few  minutes  of  chat  in  every  drawing- 
room,  and  a  few  columns  in  every  magazine ;  and  it  will  then, 
to  borrow  the  elegant  language  of  the  play-bills,  be  withdrawn 
to  make  room  for  the  forthcoming  novelties. 

We  wish,  however,  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  interest,  transient 
as  it  may  be,  which  this  work  has  excited.  The  dexterous 
Capuchins  never  choose  to  preach  on  the  life  and  miracles  of  a 
saint,  until  they  have  awakened  the  devotional  feelings  of  their 
auditors  by  exhibiting  some  relic  of  him,  a  thread  of  his 
garment,  a  lock  of  his  hair,  or  a  drop  of  his  blood.  On  the 
same  principle,  we  intend  to  take  advantage  of  the  late  inter- 
esting discovery,  and,  while  this  memorial  of  a  great  and  good 
man  is  still  in  the  hands  of  all,  to  say  something  of  his  moral 
and  intellectual  qualities.  Nor,  we  are  convinced,  will  the 
severest  of  our  readers  blame  us  if,  on  an  occasion  like  the 
present,  we  turn  for  a  short  time  from  the  topics  of  the  day, 
to  commemorate,  in  all  love  and  reverence,  the  genius  and 
virtues  of  John  Milton,  the  poet,  the  statesman,  the  philosopher, 
the  glory  of  English  literature,  the  champion  and  the  martyr  of 
English  liberty. 

It  is  by  his  poetry  that  Milton  is  best  known  ;  and  it  is  of 
his  poetry  that  we  wish  first  to  speak.  By  the  general  suffrage 
of  the  civilised  world,  his  place  has  been  assigned  among  the 
greatest  masters  of  the  art.  His  detractors,  however,  though 
outvoted,  have  not  been  silenced.  There  are  many  critics, 


4  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  some  of  great  name,  who  contrive  in  the  same  breath  to 
extol  the  poems  and  to  decry  the  poet.  The  works  they 
acknowledge,  considered  in  themselves,  may  be  classed  among 
the  noblest  productions  of  the  human  mind.  But  they  will  not 
allow  the  author  to  rank  with  those  great  men  who,  born  in 
the  infancy  of  civilisation,  supplied,  by  their  own  powers,  the 
want  of  instruction,  and,  though  destitute  of  models  themselves, 
bequeathed  to  posterity  models  which  defy  imitation.  Milton, 
it  is  said,  inherited  what  his  predecessors  created ;  he  lived  in 
an  enlightened  age ;  he  received  a  finished  education,  and  we 
must  therefore,  if  we  would  form  a  just  estimate  of  his  powers, 
make  large  deductions  in  consideration  of  these  advantages. 

We  venture  to  say,  on  the  contrary,  paradoxical  as  the 
remark  may  appear,  that  no  poet  has  ever  had  to  struggle  with 
more  unfavourable  circumstances  than  Milton.  He  doubted, 
as  he  has  himself  owned,  whether  he  had  not  been  born  "  an 
age  too  late."  For  this  notion  Johnson  has  thought  fit  to  make 
him  the  butt  of  much  clumsy  ridicule.  The  poet,  we  believe, 
understood  the  nature  of  his  art  better  than  the  critic.  He  knew 
that  his  poetical  genius  derived  no  advantage  from  the  civilisa- 
tion which  surrounded  him,  or  from  the  learning  which  he  had 
acquired  ;  and  he  looked  back  with  something  like  regret  to  the 
ruder  age  of  simple  words  and  vivid  impressions. 

We  think  that,  as  civilisation  advances,  poetry  almost  neces- 
sarily declines.  Therefore,  though  we  fervently  admire  those 
great  works  of  imagination  which  have  appeared  in  dark  ages, 
we  do  not  admire  them  the  more  because  they  have  appeared 
in  dark  ages.  On  the  contrary,  we  hold  that  the  most  wonder- 
ful and  splendid  proof  of  genius  is  a  great  poem  produced  in  a 
civilised  age.  We  cannot  understand  why  those  who  believe  in 
that  most  orthodox  article  of  literary  faith,  that  the  earliest  poets 
are  generally  the  best,  should  wonder  at  the  rule  as  if  it  were 
the  exception.  Surely  the  uniformity  of  the  phaenomenon 
indicates  a  corresponding  uniformity  in  the  cause. 

The  fact  is,  that  common  observers  reason  from  the  prog- 
ress of  the  experimental  sciences  to  that  of  imitative  arts.  The 


MILTON  5 

improvement  of  the  former  is  gradual  and-  slow.  Ages  are  spent 
in  collecting  materials,  ages  more  in  separating  and  combining 
them.  Even  when  a  system  has  been  formed,  there  is  still 
something  to  add,  to  alter,  or  to  reject.  Every  generation 
enjoys  the  use  of  a  vast  hoard  bequeathed  to  it  by  antiquity, 
and  transmits  that  hoard,  augmented  by  fresh  acquisitions,  to 
future  ages.  In  these  pursuits,  therefore,  the  first  speculators 
lie  under  great  disadvantages,  and,  even  when  they  fail,  are 
entitled  to  praise.  Their  pupils,  with  far  inferior  intellectual 
powers,  speedily  surpass  them  in  actual  attainments.  Every 
girl  who  has  read  Mrs.  Marcet's  little  dialogues  on  Political 
Economy  could  teach  Montague  or  Walpole  many  lessons  in 
finance.  Any  intelligent  man  may  now,  by  resolutely  apply- 
ing himself  for  a  few  years  to  mathematics,  learn  more  than 
the  great  Newton  knew  after  half  a  century  of  study  and 
meditation.  • 

But  it  is  not  thus  with  music,  with  painting,  or  with  sculp- 
ture. Still  less  is  it  thus  with  poetry.  The  progress  of  refine- 
ment rarely  supplies  these  arts  with  better  objects  of  imitation. 
It  may  indeed  improve  the  instruments  which  are  necessary  to 
the  mechanical  operations  of  the  musician,  the  sculptor,  and 
the  painter.  But  language,  the  machine  of  the  poet,  is  best 
fitted  for  his  purpose  in  its  rudest  state.  Nations,  like  indi- 
viduals, first  perceive,  and  then  abstract.  They  advance  from 
particular  images  to  general  terms.  Hence  the  vocabulary  of 
an  enlightened  society  is  philosophical,  that  of  a  half-civilised 
people  is  poetical. 

This  change  in  the  language  of  men  is  partly  the  cause  and 
partly  the  effect  of  a  corresponding  change  in  the  nature  of 
their  intellectual  operations,  of  a  change  by  which  science  gains 
and  poetry  loses.  Generalisation  is  necessary  to  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge ;  but  particularity  is  indispensable  to  the 
creations  of  the  imagination.  In  proportion  as  men  know 
more  and  think  more,  they  look  less  at  individuals  and  more 
at  classes.  They  therefore  make  better  theories  and  worse 
poems.  They  give  us  vague  phrases  instead  of  images,  and 


6  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

personified  qualities  instead  of  men.  They  may  be  better  able 
to  analyse  human  nature  than  their  predecessors.  But  analysis 
is  not  the  business  of  the  poet.  His  office  is  to  portray,  not  to 
dissect.  He  may  believe  in  a  moral  sense,  like  Shaftesbury ; 
he  may  refer  all  human  actions  to  self-interest,  like  Helvetius ; 
or  he  may  never  think  about  the  matter  at  all.  His  creed  on 
such  subjects  will  no  more  influence  his  poetry,  properly  so 
called,  than  the  notions  which  a  painter  may  have  conceived 
respecting  the  lachrymal  glands,  or  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
will  affect  the  tears  of  his  Niobe,  or  the  blushes  of  his  Aurora. 
If  Shakespeare  had  written  a  book  on  the  motives  of  human 
actions,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  would  have  been  a 
good  one.  It  is  extremely  improbable  that  it  would  have  con- 
tained half  so  much  able  reasoning  on  the  subject  as  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Fable  of  the  Bees.  But  could  Mandeville  have 
created  an  lago  ?  Well  as  he  knew*  how  to  resolve  characters 
into  their  elements,  would  he  have  been  able  to  combine  those 
elements  in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  up  a  man,  a  real,  living, 
individual  man  ? 

Perhaps  no  person  can  be  a  poet,  or  can  even  enjoy  poetry, 
without  a  certain  unsoundness  of  mind,  if  anything  which  gives 
so  much  pleasure  ought  to  be  called  unsoundness.  By  poetry 
we  mean  not  all  writing  in  verse,  nor  even  all  good  writing  in 
verse.  Our  definition  excludes  many  metrical  compositions 
which,  on  other  grounds,  deserve  the  highest  praise.  By  poetry 
we  mean  the  art  of  employing  words  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
produce  an  illusion  on  the  imagination,  the  art  of  doing  by 
means  of  words  what  the  painter  does  by  means  of  colours. 
Thus  the  greatest  of  poets  has  described  it,  in  lines  universally 
admired  for  the  vigour  and  felicity  of  their  diction,  and  still 
more  valuable  on  account  of  the  just  notion  which  they  convey 
of  the  art  in  which  he  excelled : 

As  the  imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  poet's  pen 
Turns  them  to  shapes,  and  gives  to  airy  nothing 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name. 


MILTON  7 

These  are  the  fruits  of  the  "  fine  frenzy  "  which  he  ascribes 
to  the  poet  —  a  fine  frenzy  doubtless,  but  still  a  frenzy.  Truth, 
indeed,  is  essential  to  poetry ;  but  it  is  the  truth  of  madness. 
The  reasonings  are  just ;  but  the  premises  are  false.  After  the 
first  suppositions  have  been  made,  everything  ought  to  be  con- 
sistent ;  but  those  first  suppositions  require  a  degree  of  credu- 
lity which  almost  amounts  to  a  partial  and  temporary  derange- 
ment of  the  intellect.  Hence  of  all  people  children  are  the 
most  imaginative.  They  abandon  themselves  without  reserve 
to  every  illusion.  Every  image  which  is  strongly  presented  to 
their  mental  eye  produces  on  them  the  effect  of  reality.  No 
man,  whatever  his  sensibility  may  be,  is  ever  affected  by  Ham- 
let or  Lear,  as  a  little  girl  is  affected  by  the  story  of  poor  Red 
Riding-hood.  She  knows  that  it  is  all  false,  that  wolves  can- 
not speak,  that  there  are  no  wolves  in  England.  Yet  in  spite 
of  her  knowledge  she  believes ;  she  weeps ;  she  trembles ;  she 
dares  not  go  into  a  dark  room  lest  she  should  feel  the  teeth 
of  the  monster  at  her  throat.  Such  is  the  despotism  of  the 
imagination  over  uncultivated  minds. 

In  a  rude  state  of  society  men  are  children  with  a  greater 
variety  of  ideas.  It  is  therefore  in  such  a  state  of  society  that 
we  may  expect  to  find  the  poetical  temperament  in  its  highest 
perfection.  In  an  enlightened  age  there  will  be  much  intelli- 
gence, much  science,  much  philosophy,  abundance  of  just  clas- 
sification and  subtle  analysis,  abundance  of  wit  and  eloquence, 
abundance  of  verses,  and  even  of  good  ones ;  but  little  poetry. 
Men  will  judge  and  compare  ;  but  they  will  not  create.  They 
will  talk  about  the  old  poets,  and  comment  on  them,  and  to  a 
certain  degree  enjoy  them.  But  they  will  scarcely  be  able  to 
conceive  the  effect  which  poetry  produced  on  their  ruder  an- 
cestors, the  agony,  the  ecstasy,  the  plenitude  of  belief.  The 
Greek  Rhapsodists,  according  to  Plato,  could  scarce  recite 
Homer  without  falling  into  convulsions.  The  Mohawk  hardly 
feels  the  scalping  knife  while  he  shouts  his  death-song.  The 
power  which  the  ancient  bards  of  Wales  and  Germany  exer- 
cised over  their  auditors  seems  to  modern  readers  almost 


8  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

miraculous.  Such  feelings  are  very  rare  in  a  civilized  com- 
munity, and  most  rare  among  those  who  participate  most  in 
its  improvements.  They  linger  longest  amongst  the  peasantry. 

Poetry  produces  an  illusion  on  the  eye  of  the  mind,  as  a 
magic  lantern  produces  an  illusion  on  the  eye  of  the  body. 
And,  as  the  magic  lantern  acts  best  in  a  dark  room,  poetry 
effects  its  purpose  most  completely  in  a  dark  age.  As  the  light 
of  knowledge  breaks  in  upon  its  exhibitions,  as  the  outlines  of 
certainty  become  more  and  more  definite,  and  the  shades  of 
probability  more  and  more  distinct,  the  hues  and  lineaments 
of  the  phantoms  which  the  poet  calls  up  grow  fainter  and 
fainter.  We  cannot  unite  the  incompatible  advantages  of  reality 
and  deception,  the  clear  discernment  of  truth  and  the  exquisite 
enjoyment  of  fiction. 

He  who,  in  an  enlightened  and  literary  society,  aspires  to 
be  a  great  poet  must  first  become  a  little  child,  he  must  take 
to  pieces  the  whole  web  of  his  mind.  He  must  unlearn  much 
of  that  knowledge  which  has  perhaps  constituted  hitherto  his 
chief  title  to  superiority.  His  very  talents  will  be  a  hindrance 
to  him.  His  difficulties  will  be  proportioned  to  his  proficiency 
in  the  pursuits  which  are  fashionable  among  his  contempo- 
raries ;  and  that  proficiency  will  in  general  be  proportioned  to 
the  vigour  and  activity  of  his  mind.  And  it  is  well  if,  after  all 
his  sacrifices  and  exertions,  his  works  do  not  resemble  a  lisp- 
ing man  or  a  modern  ruin.  We  have  seen  in  our  own  time 
great  talents,  intense  labour,  and  long  meditation,  employed  in 
this  struggle  against  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  employed,  we 
will  not  say  absolutely  in  vain,  but  with  dubious  success  and 
feeble  applause. 

If  these  reasonings  be  just,  no  poet  has  ever  triumphed  over 
greater  difficulties  than  Milton.  He  received  a  learned  educa- 
tion :  he  was  a  profound  and  elegant  classical  scholar :  he  had 
studied  all  the  mysteries  of  Rabbinical  literature :  he  was  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  every  language  of  modern  Europe,  from 
which  either  pleasure  or  information  was  then  to  be  derived. 
He  was  perhaps  the  only  great  poet  of  later  times  who  has  been 


MILTON  9 

distinguished  by  the  excellence  of  his  Latin  verse.  The  genius 
of  Petrarch  was  scarcely  of  the  first  order ;  and  his  poems  in 
the  ancient  language,  though  much  praised  by  those  who  have 
never  read  them,  are  wretched  compositions.  Cowley,  with  all 
his  admirable  wit  and  ingenuity,  had  little  imagination :  nor 
indeed  do  we  think  his  classical  diction  comparable  to  that  of 
Milton.  The  authority  of  Johnson  is  against  us  on  this  point. 
But  Johnson  had  studied  the  bad  writers  of  the  middle  ages 
till  he  had  become  utterly  insensible  to  the  Augustan  elegance, 
and  was  as  ill  qualified  to  judge  between  two  Latin  styles  as 
a  habitual  drunkard  to  set  up  for  a  wine-taster. 

Versification  in  a  dead  language  is  an  exotic,  a  far-fetched, 
costly,  sickly  imitation  of  that  which  elsewhere  may  be  found 
in  healthful  and  spontaneous  perfection.  The  soils  on  which 
this  rarity  flourishes  are  in  general  as  ill  suited  to  the  produc- 
tion of  vigorous  native  poetry  as  the  flower-pots  of  a  hot-house 
to  the  growth  of  oaks.  That  the  author  of  the  Paradise  Lost 
should  have  written  the  Epistle  to  Manso  was  truly  wonderful. 
Never  before  were  such  marked  originality  and  such  exquisite 
mimicry  found  together.  Indeed  in  all  the  Latin  poems  of 
Milton  the  artificial  manner  indispensable  to  such  works  is 
admirably  preserved,  while,  at  the  same  time,  his  genius  gives 
to  them  a  peculiar  charm,  an  air  of  nobleness  and  freedom, 
which  distinguishes  them  from  all  other  writings  of  the  same 
class.  They  remind  us  of  the  amusements  of  those  angelic 
warriors  who  composed  the  cohort  of  Gabriel : 

About  him  exercised  heroic  games 
The  unarmed  youth  of  heaven.    But  o'er  their  heads 
Celestial  armoury,  shields,  helms,  and  spears 
Hung  high,  with  diamond  flaming,  and  with  gold. 

We  cannot  look  upon  the  sportive  exercises  for  which  the 
genius  of  Milton  ungirds  itself,  without  catching  a  glimpse  of 
the  gorgeous  and  terrible  panoply  which  it  is  accustomed  to 
wear.  The  strength  of  his  imagination  triumphed  over  every 
obstacle.  So  intense  and  ardent  was  the  fire  of  his  mind,  that 
it  not  only  was  not  suffocated  beneath  the  weight  of  fuel,  but 


10  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

penetrated  the  whole  superincumbent  mass  with  its  own  heat 
and  radiance. 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  attempt  anything  like  a  complete 
examination  of  the  poetry  of  Milton.  The  public  has  long  been 
agreed  as  to  the  merit  of  the  most  remarkable  passages,  the 
incomparable  harmony  of  the  numbers,  and  the  excellence  of 
that  style,  which  no  rival  has  been  able  to  equal,  and  no  paro- 
dist to  degrade,  which  displays  in  their  highest  perfection  the 
idiomatic  powers  of  the  English  tongue,  and  to  which  every 
ancient  and  every  modern  language  has  contributed  something 
of  grace,  of  energy,  or  of  music.  In  the  vast  field  of  criticism 
on  which  we  are  entering,  innumerable  reapers  have  already 
put  their  sickles.  Yet  the  harvest  is  so  abundant  that  the 
negligent  search  of  a  straggling  gleaner  may  be  rewarded  with 
a  sheaf. 

The  most  striking  characteristic  of  the  poetry  of  Milton  is 
the  extreme  remoteness  of  the  associations  by  means  of  which 
it  acts  on  the  reader.  Its  effect  is  produced,  not  so  much  by 
what  it  expresses,  as  by  what  it  suggests ;  not  so  much  by  the 
ideas  which  it  directly  conveys,  as  by  other  ideas  which  are 
connected  with  them.  He  electrifies  the  mind  through  con- 
ductors. The  most  unimaginative  man  must  understand  the 
Iliad.  Homer  gives  him  no  choice,  and  requires  from  him  no 
exertion,  but  takes  the  whole  upon  himself,  and  sets  the  images 
in  so  clear  a  light,  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  blind  to  them. 
The  works  of  Milton  cannot  be  comprehended  or  enjoyed,  un- 
less the  mind  of  the  reader  co-operate  with  that  of  the  writer. 
He  does  not  paint  a  finished  picture,  or  play  for  a  mere  pas- 
sive listener.  He  sketches,  and  leaves  others  to  fill  up  the 
outline.  He  strikes  the  keynote,  and  expects  his  hearer  to 
make  out  the  melody. 

We  often  hear  of  the  magical  influence  of  poetry.  The 
expression  in  general  means  nothing :  but,  applied  to  the  writ- 
ings of  Milton,  it  is  most  appropriate.  His  poetry  acts  like  an 
incantation.  Its  merit  lies  less  in  its  obvious  meaning  than  in 
its  occult  power.  There  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  be  no 


MILTON  1 1 

more  in  his  words  than  in  other  words.  But  they  are  words 
of  enchantment.  No  sooner  are  they  pronounced,  than  the 
past  is  present  and  the  distant  near.  New  forms  of  beauty 
start  at  once  into  existence,  and  all  the  burial-places  of  the 
memory  give  up  their  dead.  Change  the  structure  of  the  sen- 
tence ;  substitute  one  synonym  for  another,  and  the  whole 
effect  is  destroyed.  The  spell  loses  its  power :  and  he  who 
should  then  hope  to  conjure  with  it  would  find  himself  as 
much  mistaken  as  Cassim  in  the  Arabian  tale,  when  he  stood 
crying,  "  Open  Wheat,"  "  Open  Barley,"  to  the  door  which 
obeyed  no  sound  but  "  Open  Sesame."  The  miserable  failure 
of  Dryden  in  his  attempt  to  translate  into  his  own  diction  some 
parts  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  this. 

In  support  of  these  observations  we  may  remark,  that  scarcely 
any  passages  in  the  poems  of  Milton  are  more  generally  known 
or  more  frequently  repeated  than  those  which  are  little  more 
than  muster-rolls  of  names.  They  are  not  always  more  appro- 
priate or  more  melodious  than  other  names.  Every  one  of  them 
is  the  first  link  in  a  long  chain  of  associated  ideas.  Like  the 
dwelling-place  of  our  infancy  revisited  in  manhood,  like  the 
song  of  our  country  heard  in  a  strange  land,  they  produce 
upon  us  an  effect  wholly  independent  of  their  intrinsic  value. 
One  transports  us  back  to  a  remote  period  of  history.  Another 
places  us  among  the  novel  scenes  and  manners  of  a  distant 
region.  A  third  evokes  all  the  dear  classical  recollections  of 
childhood,  the  schoolroom,  the  dog-eared  Virgil,  the  holiday, 
and  the  prize.  A  fourth  brings  before  us  the  splendid  phan- 
toms of  chivalrous  romance,  the  trophied  lists,  the  embroidered 
housings,  the  quaint  devices,  the  haunted  forests,  the  enchanted 
gardens,  the  achievements  of  enamoured  knights,  and  the  smiles 
of  rescued  princesses. 

In  none  of  the  works  of  Milton  is  his  peculiar  manner  more 
happily  displayed  than  in  the  Allegro  and  the  Penscroso.  It  is 
impossible  to  conceive  that  the  mechanism  of  language  can  be 
brought  to  a  more  exquisite  degree  of  perfection.  These  poems 
differ  from  others,  as  attar  of  roses  differs  from  ordinary  rose 


12  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

water,  the  close  packed  essence  from  the  thin  diluted  mixture. 
They  are  indeed  not  so  much  poems,  as  collections  of  hints, 
from  each  of  which  the  reader  is  to  make  out  a  poem  for  him- 
self. Every  epithet  is  a  text  for  a  stanza. 

The  Comus  and  the  Samson  Agonistes  are  works  which, 
though  of  very  different  merit,  offer  some  marked  points  of 
resemblance.  Both  are  lyric  poems  in  the  form  of  plays. 
There  are  perhaps  no  two  kinds  of  composition  so  essentially 
dissimilar  as  the  drama  and  the  ode.  The  business  of  the 
dramatist  is  to  keep  himself  out  of  sight,  and  to  let  nothing 
appear  but  his  characters.  As  soon  as  he  attracts  notice  to  his 
personal  feelings,  the  illusion  is  broken.  The  effect  is  as  un- 
pleasant as  that  which  is  produced  on  the  stage  by  the  voice  of 
a  prompter  or  the  entrance  of  a  scene-shifter.  Hence  it  was, 
that  the  tragedies  of  Byron  were  his  least  successful  perform- 
ances. They  resemble  those  pasteboard  pictures  invented  by  the 
friend  of  children,  Mr.  Newbery,  in  which  a  single  moveable 
head  goes  round  twenty  different  bodies,  so  that  the  same  face 
looks  out  upon  us  successively,  from  the  uniform  of  a  hussar, 
the  furs  of  a  judge,  and  the  rags  of  a  beggar.  In  all  the 
characters,  patriots  and  tyrants,  haters  and  lovers,  the  frown 
and  sneer  of  Harold  were  discernible  in  an  instant.  But  this 
species  of  egotism,  though  fatal  to  the  drama,  is  the  inspiration 
of  the  ode.  It  is  the  part  of  the  lyric  poet  to  abandon  himself, 
without  reserve,  to  his  own  emotions. 

Between  these  hostile  elements  many  great  men  have  en- 
deavoured to  effect  an  amalgamation,  but  never  with  complete 
success.  The  Greek  Drama,  on  the  model  of  which  the  Samson 
was  written,  sprang  from  the  Ode.  The  dialogue  was  ingrafted 
on  the  chorus,  and  naturally  partook  of  its  character.  The 
genius  of  the  greatest  of  the  Athenian  dramatists  co-operated 
with  the  circumstances  under  which  tragedy  made  its  first  ap- 
pearance. ./Eschylus  was,  head  and  heart,  a  lyric  poet.  In  his 
time,  the  Greeks  had  far  more  intercourse  with  the  East  than 
in  the  days  of  Homer ;  and  they  had  not  yet  acquired  that 
immense  superiority  in  war,  in  science,  and  in  the  arts,  which, 


MILTON  1 3 

in  the  following  generation,  led  them  to  treat  the  Asiatics  with 
contempt.  From  the  narrative  of  Herodotus  it  should  seem 
that  they  still  looked  up,  with  the  veneration  of  disciples,  to 
Egypt  and  Assyria.  At  this  period,  accordingly,  it  was  natural 
that  the  literature  of  Greece  should  be  tinctured  with  the  Orien- 
tal style.  And  that  style,  we  think,  is  discernible  in  the  works 
of  Pindar  and  yEschylus.  The  latter  often  reminds  us  of  the 
Hebrew  writers.  The  book  of  Job,  indeed,  in  conduct  and  dic- 
tion, bears  a  considerable  resemblance  to  some  of  his  dramas. 
Considered  as  plays,  his  works  are  absurd ;  considered  as 
choruses,  they  are  above  all  praise.  If,  for  instance,  we  exam- 
ine the  address  of  Clytemnestra  to  Agamemnon  on  his  return, 
or  the  description  of  the  seven  Argive  chiefs,  by  the  principles 
of  dramatic  writing,  we  shall  instantly  condemn  them  as  mon- 
strous. But  if  we  forget  the  characters,  and  think  only  of  the 
poetry,  we  shall  admit  that  it  has  never  been  surpassed  in 
energy  and  magnificence.  Sophocles  made  the  Greek  Drama 
as  dramatic  as  was  consistent  with  its  original  form.  His  por- 
traits of  men  have  a  sort  of  similarity ;  but  it  is  the  similarity  not 
of  a  painting,  but  of  a  bas-relief.  It  suggests  a  resemblance; 
but  it  does  not  produce  an  illusion.  Euripides  attempted  to 
carry  the  reform  further.  But  it  was  a  task  far  beyond  his 
powers,  perhaps  beyond  any  powers.  Instead  of  correcting 
what  was  bad,  he  destroyed  what  was  excellent.  He  substituted 
crutches  for  stilts,  bad  sermons  for  good  odes. 

Milton,  it  is  well  known,  admired  Euripides  highly,  much 
•more  highly  than,  in  our  opinion,  Euripides  deserved.  Indeed 
the  caresses  which  this  partiality  leads  our  countryman  to 
bestow  on  "sad  Electra's  poet,"  sometimes  remind  us  of  the 
beautiful  Queen  of  Fairy-land  kissing  the  long  ears  of  Bottom. 
At  all  events,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  veneration  for 
the  Athenian,  whether  just  or  not,  was  injurious  to  the  Samson 
Agonist es.  Had  Milton  taken  vEschylus  for  his  model,  he 
would  have  given  himself  up  to  the  lyric  inspiration,  and 
poured  out  profusely  all  the  treasures  of  his  mind,  without 
bestowing  a  thought  on  those  dramatic  proprieties  which  the 


14  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

nature  of  the  work  rendered  it  impossible  to  preserve.  In  the 
attempt  to  reconcile  things  in  their  own  nature  inconsistent  he 
has  failed,  as  every  one  else  must  have  failed.  We  cannot 
identify  ourselves  with  the  characters,  as  in  a  good  play.  We 
cannot  identify  ourselves  with  the  poet,  as  in  a  good  ode. 
The  conflicting  ingredients,  like  an  acid  and  an  alkali  mixed, 
neutralise  each  other.  We  are  by  no  means  insensible  to  the 
merits  of  this  celebrated  piece,  to  the  severe  dignity  of  the 
style,  the  graceful  and  pathetic  solemnity  of  the  opening 
speech,  or  the  wild  and  barbaric  melody  which  gives  so  striking 
an  effect  to  the  choral  passages.  But  we  think  it,  we  confess, 
the  least  successful  effort  of  the  genius  of  Milton. 

The  Comus  is  framed  on  the  model  of  the  Italian  Masque, 
as  the  Samson  is  framed  on  the  model  of  the  Greek  Tragedy. 
It  is  certainly  the  noblest  performance  of  the  kind  which  exists 
in  any  language.  It  is  as  far  superior  to  the  Faithful  Shep- 
herdess as  the  Faithful  Shepherdess  is  to  the  Aminta,  or  the 
Aminta  to  the  Pastor  Fido.  It  was  well  for  Milton  that  he  had 
here  no  Euripides  to  mislead  him.  He  understood  and  loved  the 
literature  of  modern  Italy.  But  he  did  not  feel  for  it  the  same 
veneration  which  he  entertained  for  the  remains  of  Athenian 
and  Roman  poetry,  consecrated  by  so  many  lofty  and  endearing 
recollections.  The  faults,  moreover,  of  his  Italian  predecessors 
were  of  a  kind  to  which  his  mind  had  a  deadly  antipathy.  He 
could  stoop  to  a  plain  style,  sometimes  even  to  a  bald  style ; 
but  false  brilliancy  was  his  utter  aversion.  His  muse  had  no 
objection  to  a  russet  attire ;  but  she  turned  with  disgust  from 
the  finery  of  Guarini,  as  tawdry  and  as  paltry  as  the  rags  of  a 
chimney-sweeper  on  May-day.  Whatever  ornaments  she  wears 
are  of  massive  gold,  not  only  dazzling  to  the  sight,  but  capable 
of  standing  the  severest  test  of  the  crucible. 

Milton  attended  in  the  Comus  to  the  distinction  which  he 
afterwards  neglected  in  the  Samson.  He  made  his  Masque 
what  it  ought  to  be,  essentially  lyrical,  and  dramatic  only  in 
semblance.  He  has  not  attempted  a  fruitless  struggle  against 
a  defect  inherent  in  the  nature  of  that  species  of  composition ; 


MILTON  15 

and  he  has  therefore  succeeded,  wherever  success  was  not  im- 
possible. The  speeches  must  be  read  as  majestic  soliloquies ; 
and  he  who  so  reads  them  will  be  enraptured  with  their  elo- 
quence, their  sublimity,  and  their  music.  The  interruptions 
of  the  dialogue,  however,  impose  a  constraint  upon  the  writer, 
and  break  the  illusion  of  the  reader.  The  finest  passages  are 
those  which  are  lyric  in  form  as  well  as  in  spirit.  "  I  should 
much  commend,"  says  the  excellent  Sir  Henry  Wotton  in  a 
letter  to  Milton,  "  the  tragical  part  if  the  lyrical  did  not  ravish 
me  with  a  certain  Dorique  delicacy  in  your  songs  and  odes, 
whereunto,  I  must  plainly  confess  to  you,  I  have  seen  yet  noth- 
ing parallel  in  our  language."  The  criticism  was  just.  It  is 
when  Milton  escapes  from  the  shackles  of  the  dialogue,  when 
he  is  discharged  from  the  labour  of  uniting  two  incongruous 
styles,  when  he  is  at  liberty  to  indulge  his  choral  raptures 
without  reserve,  that  he  rises  even  above  nimself.  Then,  like 
his  own  good  Genius  bursting  from  the  earthly  form  and  weeds 
of  Thyrsis,  he  stands  forth  in  celestial  freedom  and  beauty ;  he 
seems  to  cry  exultingly, 

*'  Now  my  task  is  smoothly  done, 
I  can  fly  or  I  can  run," 

to  skim  the  earth,  to  soar  above  the  clouds,  to  bathe  in  the 
Elysian  dew  of  the  rainbow,  and  to  inhale  the  balmy  smells  of 
nard  and  cassia,  which  the  musky  winds  of  the  zephyr  scatter 
through  the  cedared  alleys  of  the  Hesperides. 

There  are  several  of  the  minor  poems  of  Milton  on  which 
we  would  willingly  make  a  few  remarks.  Still  more  willingly 
would  we  enter  into  a  detailed  examination  of  that  admirable 
poem,  the  Paradise  Regained,  which,  strangely  enough,  is 
scarcely  ever  mentioned  except  as  an  instance  of  the  blindness 
of  the  parental  affection  which  men  of  letters  bear  towards  the 
offspring  of  their  intellects.  That  Milton  was  mistaken  in  pre- 
ferring this  work,  excellent  as  it  is,  to  the  Paradise  Lost,  we 
readily  admit.  But  we  are  sure  that  the  superiority  of  the 
Paradise  Lost  to  the  Paradise  Regained  is  not  more  decided, 


1 6  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

than  the  superiority  of  the  Paradise  Regained  to  every  poem 
which  has  since  made  its  appearance.  Our  limits,  however, 
prevent  us  from  discussing  the  point  at  length.  We  hasten  on 
to  that  extraordinary  production  which  the  general  suffrage  of 
critics  has  placed  in  the  highest  class  of  human  compositions. 

The  only  poem  of  modern  times  which  can  be  compared 
with  the  Paradise  Lost  is  the  Divine  Comedy.  The  subject  of 
Milton,  in  some  points,  resembled  that  of  Dante ;  but  he  has 
treated  it  in  a  widely  different  manner.  We  cannot,  we  think, 
better  illustrate  our  opinion  respecting  our  own  great  poet,  than 
by  contrasting  him  with  the  father  of  Tuscan  literature. 

The  poetry  of  Milton  differs  from  that  of  Dante,  as  the  hier- 
oglyphics of  Egypt  differed  from  the  picture-writing  of  Mexico. 
The  images  which  Dante  employs  speak  for  themselves ;  they 
stand  simply  for  what  they  are.  Those  of  Milton  have  a  signifi- 
cation which  is  ofte*n  discernible  only  to  the  initiated.  Their 
value  depends  less  on  what  they  directly  represent  than  on  what 
they  remotely  suggest.  However  strange,  however  grotesque, 
may  be  the  appearance  which  Dante  undertakes  to  describe,  he 
never  shrinks  from  describing  it.  He  gives  us  the  shape,  the 
colour,  the  sound,  the  smell,  the  ta'ste ;  he  counts  the  numbers ; 
he  measures  the  size.  His  similes  are  the  illustrations  of  a 
traveller.  Unlike  those  of  other  poets,  and  especially  of  Milton, 
they  are  introduced  in  a  plain,  business-like  manner ;  not 
for  the  sake  of  any  beauty  in  the  objects  from  which  they  are 
drawn ;  not  for  the  sake  of  any  ornament  which  they  may 
impart  to  the  poem  ;  but  simply  in  order  to  make  the  meaning 
of  the  writer  as  clear  to  the  reader  as  it  is  to  himself.  The 
ruins  of  the  precipice  which  led  from  the  sixth  to  the  seventh 
circle  of  hell  werejike  those  of  the  rock  which  fell  into  the 
Adige  on  the  south  of  Trent.  The  cataract  of  Phlegethon  was 
like  that  of  Aqua  Cheta  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Benedict. 
The  place  where  the  heretics  were  confined  in  burning  tombs 
resembled  the  vast  cemetery  of  Aries. 

Now  let  us  compare  with  the  exact  details  of  Dante  the 
dim  intimations  of  Milton.  We  will  cite  a  few  examples.  The 


MILTON  17 

English  poet  has  never  thought  of  taking  the  measure  of  Satan. 
He  gives  us  merely  a  vague  idea  of  vast  bulk.  In  one  passage 
the  fiend  lies  stretched  out  huge  in  length,  floating  many  a 
rood,  equal  in  size  to  the  earth-born  enemies  of  Jove,  or  to 
the  sea-monster  which  the  mariner  mistakes  for  an  island. 
When  he  addresses  himself  to  battle  against  the  guardian 
angels,  he  stands  like  Teneriffe  or  Atlas  :  his  stature  reaches 
the  sky.  Contrast  with  these  descriptions  the  lines  in  which 
Dante  has  described  the  gigantic  spectre  of  Nimrod.  "His 
face  seemed  to  me  as  long  and  as  broad  as  the  ball  of  St. 
Peter's  at  Rome ;  and  his  other  limbs  were  in  proportion ;  so 
that  the  bank,  which  concealed  him  from  the  waist  downwards, 
nevertheless  showed  so  much  of  him,  that  three  tall  Germans 
would  in  vain  have  attempted  to  reach  to  his  hair."  We  are 
sensible  that  we  do  no  justice  to  the  admirable  style  of  the 
Florentine  poet.  But  Mr.  Gary's  translation  is  not  at  hand  ;  and 
our  version,  however  rude,  is  sufficient  to  illustrate  our  meaning. 

Once  more,  compare  the  lazar-house  in  the  eleventh  book  of 
the  Paradise  Lost  with  the  last  ward  of  Malebolge  in  Dante. 
Milton  avoids  the  loathsome  details,  and  takes  refuge  in  in- 
distinct but  solemn  and  tremendous  imagery.  Despair  hurrying 
from  couch  to  couch  to  mock  the  wretches  with  his  attendance, 
Death  shaking  his  dart  over  them,  but,  in  spite  of  supplications, 
delaying  to  strike.  What  says  Dante  ?  "  There  was  such  a 
moan  there  as  there  would  be  if  all  the  sick  who,  between 
July  and  September,  are  in  the  hospitals  of  Valdichiana,  and 
of  the  Tuscan  swamps,  and  of  Sardinia,  were  in  one  pit  to- 
gether ;  and  such  a  stench  was  issuing  forth  as  is  wont  to  issue 
from  decayed  limbs." 

We  will  not  take  upon  ourselves  the  invidious  office  of  set- 
tling precedency  between  two  such  writers.  Each  in  his  own 
department  is  incomparable ;  and  each,  we  may  remark,  has 
wisely,  or  fortunately,  taken  a  subject  adapted  to  exhibit  his 
peculiar  talent  to  the  greatest  advantage.  The  Divine  Comedy 
is  a  personal  narrative.  Dante  is  the  eye-witness  and  ear-witness 
pf  that  which  he  relates.  He  is  the  very  man  who  has  heard 


1 8  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  tormented  spirits  crying  out  for  the  second  death,  who  has 
read  the  dusky  characters  on  the  portal  within  which  there  is 
no  hope,  who  has  hidden  his  face  from  the  terrors  of  the 
Gorgon,  who  has  fled  from  the  hooks  and  the  seething  pitch 
of  Barbariccia  and  Draghignazzo.  His  own  hands  have  grasped 
the  shaggy  sides  of  Lucifer.  His  own  feet  have  climbed  the 
mountain  of  expiation.  His  own  brow  has  been  marked  by 
the  purifying  angel.  The  reader  would  throw  aside  such  a  tale 
in  incredulous  disgust,  unless  it  were  told  with  the  strongest 
air  of  veracity,  with  a  sobriety  even  in  its  horrors,  with  the 
greatest  precision  and  multiplicity  in  its  details.  The  narrative 
of  Milton  in  this  respect  differs  from  that  of  Dante,  as  the 
adventures  of  Amadis  differ  from  those  of  Gulliver.  The 
author  of  Amadis  would  have  made  his  book  ridiculous  if  he 
had  introduced  those  minute  particulars  which  give  such  a 
charm  to  the  work  of  Swift,  the  nautical  observations,  the 
affected  delicacy  about  names,  the  official  documents  tran- 
scribed at  full  length,  and  all  the  unmeaning  gossip  and 
scandal  of  the  court,  springing  out  of  nothing,  and  tending 
to  nothing.  We  are  not  shocked  at  being  told  that  a  man 
who  lived,  nobody  knows  when,  saw  many  very  strange  sights, 
and  we  can  easily  abandon  ourselves  to  the  illusion  of  the 
romance.  But  when  Lemuel  Gulliver,  surgeon,  resident  at 
Rotherhithe,  tells  us  of  pygmies  and  giants,  flying  islands, 
and  philosophising  horses,  nothing  but  such  circumstantial 
touches  could  produce  for  a  single  moment  a  deception  on 
the  imagination. 

Of  all  the  poets  who  have  introduced  into  their  works  the 
agency  of  supernatural  beings,  Milton  has  succeeded  best. 
Here  Dante  decidedly  yields  to  him  :  and  as  this  is  a  point 
on  which  many  rash  and  ill-considered  judgments  have  been 
pronounced,  we  feel  inclined  to  dwell  on  it  a  little  longer.  The 
most  fatal  error  which  a  poet  can  possibly  commit  in  the  man- 
agement of  his  machinery,  is  that  of  attempting  to  philosophise 
too  much.  Milton  has  been  often  censured  for  ascribing  to  spirits 
many  functions  of  which  spirits  must  be  incapable.  But  these 


MILTON  19 

objections,  though  sanctioned  by  eminent  names,  originate,  we 
venture  to  say,  in  profound  ignorance  of  the  art  of  poetry. 

What  is  spirit  ?  What  are  our  own  minds,  the  portion  of 
spirit  with  which  we  are  best  acquainted  ?  We  observe  certain 
phenomena.  We  cannot  explain  them  into  material  causes. 
We  therefore  infer  that  there  exists  something  which  is  not 
material.  But  of  this  something  we  have  no  idea.  We  can 
define  it  only  by  negatives.  We  can  reason  about  it  only  by 
symbols.  We  use  the  word ;  but  we  have  no  image  of  the 
thing ;  and  the  business  of  poetry  is  with  images,  and  not  with 
words.  The  poet  uses  words  indeed  ;  but  they  are  merely  the 
instruments  of  his  art,  not  its  objects.  They  are  the  materials 
which  he  is  to  dispose  in  such  a  manner  as  to  present  a  picture 
to  the  mental  eye.  And  if  they  are  not  so  disposed,  they  are 
no  more  entitled  to  be  called  poetry  than  a  bale  of  canvas  and 
a  box  of  colours  to  be  called  a  painting. 

Logicians  may  reason  about  abstractions.  But  the  great  mass 
of  men  must  have  images.  The  strong  tendency  of  the  multi- 
tude in  all  ages  and  nations  to  idolatry  can  be  explained  on  no 
other  principle.  The  first  inhabitants  of  Greece,  there  is  reason 
to  believe,  worshipped  one  invisible  Deity.  But  the  necessity 
of  having  something  more  definite  to  adore  produced,  in  a  few 
centuries,  the  innumerable  crowd  of  Gods  and  Goddesses.  In 
like  manner  the  ancient  Persians  thought  it  impious  to  exhibit 
the  Creator  under  a  human  form.  Yet  even  these  transferred 
to  the  Sun  the  worship  which,  in  speculation,  they  considered 
due  only  to  the  Supreme  Mind.  The  history  of  the  Jews  is 
the  record  of  a  continued  struggle  between  pure  Theism,  sup- 
ported by  the  most  terrible  sanctions,  and  the  strangely  fasci- 
nating desire  of  having  some  visible  and  tangible  object  of 
adoration.  Perhaps  none  of  the  secondary  causes  which  Gibbon 
has  assigned  for  the  rapidity  with  which  Christianity  spread 
over  the  world,  while  Judaism  scarcely  ever  acquired  a  proselyte, 
operated  more  powerfully  than  this  feeling.  God,  the  uncre- 
ated, the  incomprehensible,  the  invisible,  attracted  few  worship- 
pers. A  philosopher  might  admire  so  noble  a  conception  ;  but 


20  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  crowd  turned  away  in  disgust  from  words  which  presented 
no  image  to  their  minds.  It  was  before  Deity  embodied  in  a 
human  form,  walking  among  men,  partaking  of  their  infirmities, 
leaning  on  their  bosoms,  weeping  over  their  graves,  slumbering 
in  the  manger,  bleeding  on  the  cross,  that  the  prejudices  of 
the  Synagogue,  and  the  doubts  of  the  Academy,  and  the  pride 
of  the  Portico,  and  the  fasces  of  the  Lictor,  and  the  swords  of 
thirty  legions,  were  humbled  in  the  dust.  Soon  after  Christi- 
anity had  achieved  its  triumph,  the  principle  which  had  assisted 
it  began  to  corrupt  it.  It  became  a  new  Paganism.  Patron 
saints  assumed  the  offices  of  household  gods.  St.  George  took 
the  place  of  Mars.  St.  Elmo  consoled  the  mariner  for  the  loss 
of  Castor  and  Pollux.  The  Virgin  Mother  and  Cecilia  suc- 
ceeded to  Venus  and  the  Muses.  The  fascination  of  sex  and 
loveliness  was  again  joined  to  that  of  celestial  dignity  ;  and  the 
homage  of  chivalry  was  blended  with  that  of  religion.  Re- 
formers have  often  made  a  stand  against  these  feelings ;  but 
never  with  more  than  apparent  and  partial  success.  The  men 
who  demolished  the  images  in  cathedrals  have  not  always  been 
able  to  demolish  those  which  were  enshrined  in  their  minds.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  in  politics  the  same  rule  holds 
good.  Doctrines,  we  are  afraid,  must  generally  be  embodied 
before  they  can  excite  a  strong  public  feeling.  The  multitude  is 
more  easily  interested  for  the  most  unmeaning  badge,  or  the 
most  insignificant  name,  than  for  the  most  important  principle. 
From  these  considerations,  we  infer  that  no  poet,  who  should 
affect  that  metaphysical  accuracy  for  the  want  of  which  Milton 
has  been  blamed,  would  escape  a  disgraceful  failure.  Still,  how- 
ever, there  was  another  extreme  which,  though  far  less  danger- 
ous, was  also  to  be  avoided.  The  imaginations  of  men  are  in 
a  great  measure  under  the  control  of  their  opinions.  The  most 
exquisite  art  of  poetical  colouring  can  produce  no  illusion,  when 
it  is  employed  to  represent  that  which  is  at  once  perceived  to 
be  incongruous  and  absurd.  Milton  wrote  in  an  age  of  philoso- 
phers and  theologians.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  for  him 
to  abstain  from  giving  such  a  shock  to  their  understanding  as 


MILTON  21 

might  break  the  charm  which  it  was  his  object  to  throw  over 
their  imaginations.  This  is  the  real  explanation  of  the  indis- 
tinctness and  inconsistency  with  which  he  has  often  been 
reproached.  Dr.  Johnson  acknowledges  that  it  was  absolutely 
necessary  that  the  spirit  should  be  clothed  with  material  forms. 
"  But,"  says  he,  "  the  poet  should  have  secured  the  consistency 
of  his  system  by  keeping  immateriality  out  of  sight,  and  seducing 
the  reader  to  drop  it  from  his  thoughts."  This  is  easily  said ; 
but  what  if  Milton  could  not  seduce  his  readers  to  drop  im- 
materiality from  their  thoughts  ?  What  if  the  contrary  opinion 
had  taken  so  full  a  possession  of  the  minds  of  men  as  to  leave 
no  room  even  for  the  half  belief  which  poetry  requires  ?  Such 
we  suspect  to  have  been  the  case.  It  was  impossible  for  the 
poet  to  adopt  altogether  the  material  or  the  immaterial  system. 
He  therefore  took  his  stand  on  the  debatable  ground.  He  left 
the  whole  in  ambiguity.  He  has  doubtless,  by  so  doing,  laid 
himself  open  to  the  charge  of  inconsistency.  But,  though 
philosophically  in  the  wrong,  we  cannot  but  believe  that  he 
was  poetically  in  the  right.  This  task,  which  almost  any  other 
writer  would  have  found  impracticable,  was  easy  to  him.  The 
peculiar  art  which  he  possessed  of  communicating  his  meaning 
circuitously  through  a  long  succession  of  associated  ideas,  and 
of  intimating  more  than  he  expressed,  enabled  him  to  disguise 
those  incongruities  which  he  could  not  avoid. 

Poetry  which  relates  to  the  beings  of  another  world  ought  to 
be  at  once  mysterious  and  picturesque.  That  of  Milton  is  so. 
That  of  Dante  is  picturesque  indeed  beyond  any  that  ever  was 
written.  Its  effect  approaches  to  that  produced  by  the  pencil 
or  the  chisel.  But  it  is  picturesque  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
mystery.  This  is  a  fault  on  the  right  side.,  a  fault  inseparable 
from  the  plan  of  Dante's  poem,  which,  as  we  have  already 
observed,  rendered  the  utmost  accuracy  of  description  necessary. 
Still  it  is  a  fault.  The  supernatural  agents  excite  an  interest ; 
but  it  is  not  the  interest  which  is  proper  to  supernatural  agents. 
We  feel  that  we  could  talk  to  the  ghosts  and  daemons,  without 
any  emotion  of  unearthly  awe.  We  could,  like  Don  Juan,  ask 


22  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

them  to  supper,  and  eat  heartily  in  their  company.  Dante's 
angels  are  good  men  with  wings.  His  devils  are  spiteful  ugly 
executioners.  His  dead  men  are  merely  living  men  in  strange 
situations.  The  scene  which  passes  between  the  poet  and 
Farinata  is  justly  celebrated.  Still,  Farinata  in  the  burning 
tomb  is  exactly  what  Farinata  would  have  been  at  an  auto  da 
fe.  Nothing  can  be  more  touching  than  the  first  interview  of 
Dante  and  Beatrice.  Yet  what  is  it,  but  a  lovely  woman 
chiding,  with  sweet  austere  composure,  the  lover  for  whose 
affection  she  is  grateful,  but  whose  vices  she  reprobates  ?  The 
feelings  which  give  the  passage  its  charm  would  suit  the  streets 
of  Florence  as  well  as  the  summit  of  the  Mount  of  Purgatory. 

The  spirits  of  Milton  are  unlike  those  of  almost  all  other 
writers.  His  fiends,  in  particular,  are  wonderful  creations. 
They  are  not  metaphysical  abstractions.  They  are  not  wicked 
men.  They  are  not  ugly  beasts.  They  have  no  horns,  no 
tails,  none  of  the  fee-faw-fum  of  Tasso  and  Klopstock.  They 
have  just  enough  in  common  with  human  nature  to  be  intelli- 
gible to  human  beings.  Their  characters  are,  like  their  forms, 
marked  by  a  certain  dim  resemblance  to  those  of  men,  but  exag- 
gerated to  gigantic  dimensions,  and  veiled  in  mysterious  gloom. 

Perhaps  the  gods  and  daemons  of  ^Eschylus  may  best  bear  a 
comparison  with  the  angels  and  devils  of  Milton.  The  style 
of  the  Athenian  had,  as  we  have  remarked,  something  of  the 
Oriental  character ;  and  the  same  peculiarity  may  be  traced  in 
his  mythology.  It  has  nothing  of  the  amenity  and  elegance 
which  we  generally  find  in  the  superstitions  of  Greece.  All  is 
rugged,  barbaric,  and  colossal.  The  legends  of  ^Eschylus 
seem  to  harmonise  less  with  the  fragrant  groves  and  graceful 
porticoes  in  which  his  countrymen  paid  their  vows  to  the  God 
of  Light  and  Goddess  of  Desire,  than  with  those  huge  and 
grotesque  labyrinths  of  eternal  granite  in  which  Egypt  enshrined 
her  mystic  Osiris,  or  in  which  Hindustan  still  bows  down  to 
her  seven-headed  idols.  His  favourite  gods  are  those  of  the 
elder  generation,  the  sons  of  heaven  and  earth,  compared  with 
whom  Jupiter  himself  was  a  stripling  and  an  upstart,  the 


MILTON  23 

gigantic  Titans,  and  the  inexorable  Furies.  Foremost  among 
his  creations  of  this  class  stands  Prometheus,  half  fiend,  half 
redeemer,  the  friend  of  man,  the  sullen  and  implacable  enemy 
of  Heaven.  Prometheus  bears  undoubtedly  a  considerable  re- 
semblance to  the  Satan  of  Milton.  In  both  we  find  the  same 
impatience  of  control,  the  same  ferocity,  the  same  uncon- 
querable pride.  In  both  characters  also  are  mingled,  though 
in  very  different  proportions,  some  kind  and  generous  feelings. 
Prometheus,  however,  is  hardly  superhuman  enough.  He  talks 
too  much  of  his  chains  and  his  uneasy  posture :  he  is  rather 
too  much  depressed  and  agitated.  His  resolution  seems  to  de- 
pend on  the  knowledge  which  he  possesses  that  he  holds  the 
fate  of  his  torturer  in  his  hands,  and  that  the  hour  of  his 
release  will  surely  come.  But  Satan  is  a  creature  of  another 
sphere.  The  might  of  his  intellectual  nature  is  victorious  over 
the  extremity  of  pain.  Amidst  agonies  which  cannot  be  con- 
ceived without  horror,  he  deliberates,  resolves,  and  even 
exults.  Against  the  sword  of  Michael,  against  the  thunder 
of  Jehovah,  against  the  flaming  lake,  and  the  marl  burning 
with  solid  fire,  against  the  prospect  of  an  eternity  of  uninter- 
mitted  misery,  his  spirit  bears  up  unbroken,  resting  on  its 
own  innate  energies,  requiring  no  support  from  anything 
external,  nor  even  from  hope  itself. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  the  parallel  which  we  have  been 
attempting  to  draw  between  Milton  and  Dante,  we  would  add 
that  the  poetry  of  these  great  men  has  in  a  considerable  degree 
taken  its  character  from  their  moral  qualities.  They  are  not 
egotists.  They  rarely  obtrude  their  idiosyncrasies  on  their 
readers.  They  have  nothing  in  common  with  those  modern 
beggars  for  fame,  who  extort  a  pittance  from  the  compassion 
of  the  inexperienced  by  exposing  the  nakedness  and  sores  of 
their  minds.  Yet  it  would  be  difficult  to  name  two  writers 
whose  works  have  been  more  completely,  though  undesignedly, 
coloured  by  their  personal  feelings. 

The  character  of  Milton  was  peculiarly  distinguished  by 
loftiness  of  spirit :  that  of  Dante  by  intensity  of  feeling.  In 


24  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

every  line  of  the  Divine  Comedy  we  discern  the  asperity  which 
is  produced  by  pride  struggling  with  misery.  There  is  perhaps 
no  work  in  the  world  so  deeply  and  uniformly  sorrowful.  The 
melancholy  of  Dante  was  no  fantastic  caprice.  It  was  not,  as 
far  as  at  this  distance  of  time  can  be  judged,  the  effect  of 
external  circumstances.  It  was  from  within.  Neither  love  nor 
glory,  neither  the  conflicts  of  earth  nor  the  hope  of  heaven 
could  dispel  it.  It  turned  every  consolation  and  every  pleasure 
into  its  own  nature.  It  resembled  that  noxious  Sardinian  soil 
of  which  the  intense  bitterness  is  said  to  have  been  perceptible 
even  in  its  honey.  His  mind  was,  in  the  noble  language  of 
the  Hebrew  poet,  "  a  land  of  darkness,  as  darkness  itself,  and 
where  the  light  was  as  darkness."  The  gloom  of  his  character 
discolours  all  the  passions  of  men,  and  all  the  face  of  nature, 
and  tinges  with  its  own  livid  hue  the  flowers  of  Paradise  and 
the  glories  of  the  eternal  throne.  All  the  portraits  of  him  are 
singularly  characteristic.  No  person  can  look  on  the  features, 
noble  even  to  ruggedness,  the  dark  furrows  *of  the  cheek,  the 
haggard  and  woeful  stare  of  the  eye,  the  sullen  and  con- 
temptuous curve  of  the  lip,  and  doubt  that  they  belong  to  a 
man  too  proud  and  too  sensitive  to  be  happy. 

Milton  was,  like  Dante,  a  statesman  and  a  lover ;  and,  like 
Dante,  he  had  been  unfortunate  in  ambition  and  in  love.  He 
had  survived  his  health  and  his  sight,  the  comforts  of  his  home, 
and  the  prosperity  of  his  party.  Of  the  great  men  by  whom 
he  had  been  distinguished  at  his  entrance  into  life,  some  had 
been  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come ;  some  had  carried  into 
foreign  climates  their  unconquerable  hatred  of  oppression ; 
some  were  pining  in  dungeons ;  and  some  had  poured  forth 
their  blood  on  scaffolds.  Venal  and  licentious  scribblers,  with 
just  sufficient  talent  to  clothe  the  thoughts  of  a  pander  in  the 
style  of  a  bellman,  were  now  the  favourite  writers  of  the 
Sovereign  and  of  the  public.  It  was  a  loathsome  herd,  which 
could  be  compared  to  nothing  so  fitly  as  to  the  rabble  of 
Comus,  grotesque  monsters,  half  bestial,  half  human,  dropping 
with  wine,  bloated  with  gluttony,  and  reeling  in  obscene 


MILTON  25 

dances.  Amidst  these  that  fair  Muse  was  placed,  like  the 
chaste  lady  of  the  Masque,  lofty,  spotless,  and  serene,  to  be 
chattered  at,  and  pointed  at,  and  grinned  at,  by  the  whole  rout 
of  Satyrs  and  Goblins.  If  ever  despondency  and  asperity  could 
be  excused  in  any  man,  they  might  have  been  excused  in 
Milton.  But  the  strength  of  his  mind  overcame  every  calamity. 
Neither  blindness,  nor  gout,  nor  age,  nor  penury,  nor  domestic 
afflictions,  nor  political  disappointments,  nor  abuse,  nor  pro- 
scription, nor  neglect,  had  power  to  disturb  his  sedate  and 
majestic  patience.  His  spirits  do  not  seem  to  have  been  high, 
but  they  were  singularly  equable.  His  temper  was  serious, 
perhaps  stern ;  but  it  was  a  temper  which  no  sufferings  could 
render  sullen  or  fretful.  Such  as  it  was  when,  on  the  eve  of 
great  events,  he  returned  from  his  travels,  in  the  prime  of 
health  and  manly  beauty,  loaded  with  literary  distinctions,  and 
glowing  with  patriotic  hopes,  such  it  continued  to  be  when, 
after  having  experienced  every  calamity  which  is  incident  to 
our  nature,  old,  poor,  sightless  and  disgraced,  he  retired  to  his 
hovel  to  die. 

Hence  it  was  that,  though  he  wrote  the  Paradise  Lost  at  a 
time  of  life  when  images  of  beauty  and  tenderness  are  in  gen- 
eral beginning  to  fade,  even  from  those  minds  in  which  they 
have  not  been  effaced  by  anxiety  and  disappointment,  he 
adorned  it  with  all  that  is  most  lovely  and  delightful  in  the 
physical  and  in  the  moral  world.  Neither  Theocritus  nor 
Ariosto  had  a  finer  or  a  more  healthful  sense  of  the  pleasant- 
ness of  external  objects,  or  loved  better  to  luxuriate  amidst 
sunbeams  and  flowers,  the  songs  of  nightingales,  the  juice  of 
summer  fruits,  and  the  coolness  of  shady  fountains.  His  con- 
ception of  love  unites  all  the  voluptuousness  of  the  Oriental 
harem,  and  all  the  gallantry  of  the  chivalric  tournament,  with 
all  the  pure  and  quiet  affection  of  an  English  fireside.  His 
poetry  reminds  us  of  the  miracles  of  Alpine  scenery.  Nooks 
and  dells,  beautiful  as  fairy-land,  are  embosomed  in  its  most 
rugged  and  gigantic  elevations.  The  roses  and  myrtles  bloom 
unchilled  on  the  verge  of  the  avalanche. 


26  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Traces,  indeed,  of  the  peculiar  character  of  Milton  may  be 
found  in  all  his  works ;  but  it  is  most  strongly  displayed  in  the 
Sonnets.  Those  remarkable  poems  have  been  undervalued  by 
critics  who  have  not  understood  their  nature.  They  have  no  epi- 
grammatic point.  There  is  none  of  the  ingenuity  of  Filicaja  in 
the  thought,  none  of  the  hard  and  brilliant  enamel  of  Petrarch 
in  the  style.  They  are  simple  but  majestic  records  of  the  feel- 
ings of  the  poet ;  as  little  tricked  out  for  the  public  eye  as  his 
diary  would  have  been.  A  victory,  an  unexpected  attack  upon 
the  city,  a  momentary  fit  of  depression  or  exultation,  a  jest 
thrown  out  against  one  of  his  books,  a  dream  which  for  a  short 
time  restored  to  him  that  beautiful  face  over  which  the  grave 
had  closed  for  ever,  led  him  to  musings,  which  without  effort 
shaped  themselves  into  verse.  The  unity  of  sentiment  and 
severity  of  style  which  characterise  these  little  pieces  remind  us 
of  the  Greek  Anthology,  or  perhaps  still  more  of  the  Collects 
of  the  English  Liturgy.  The  noble  poem  on  the  Massacres  of 
Piedmont  is  strictly  a  collect  in  verse. 

The  Sonnets  are  more  or  less  striking,  according  as  the 
occasions  which  gave  birth  to  them  are  more  or  less  interesting. 
But  they  are,  almost  without  exception,  dignified  by  a  sobriety 
and  greatness  of  mind  to  which  we  know  not  where  to  look 
for  a  parallel.  It  would,  indeed,  be  scarcely  safe  to  draw  any 
decided  inferences  as  to  the  character  of  a  writer  from  passages 
directly  egotistical.  But  the  qualities  which  we  have  ascribed 
to  Milton,  though  perhaps  most  strongly  marked  in  those  parts 
of  his  works  which  treat  of  his  personal  feelings,  are  distinguish- 
able in  every  page,  and  impart  to  all  his  writings,  prose  and 
poetry,  English,  Latin,  and  Italian,  a  strong  family  likeness. 

His  public  conduct  was  such  as  was  to  be  expected  from  a 
man  of  a  spirit  so  high  and  of  an  intellect  so  powerful.  He 
lived  at  one  of  the  most  memorable  eras  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind, at  the  very  crisis  of  the  great  conflict  between  Oromasdes 
and  Arimanes,  liberty  and  despotism,  reason  and  prejudice. 
That  great  battle  was  fought  for  no  single  generation,  for  no 
single  land.  The  destinies  of  the  human  race  were  staked  on 


MILTON  27 

the  same  cast  with  the  freedom  of  the  English  people.  Then 
were  first  proclaimed  those  mighty  principles  which  have  since 
worked  their  way  into  the  depths  of  the  American  forests, 
which  have  roused  Greece  from  the  slavery  and  degradation 
of  two  thousand  years,  and  which,  from  one  end  of  Europe  to 
the  other,  have  kindled  an  unquenchable  fire  in  the  hearts  of 
the  oppressed,  and  loosed  the  knees  of  the  oppressors  with  an 
unwonted  fear. 

Of  those  principles,  then  struggling  for  their  infant  existence, 
Milton  was  the  most  devoted  and  eloquent  literary  champion. 
We  need  not  say  how  much  we  admire  his  public  conduct. 
But  we  cannot  disguise  from  ourselves  that  a  large  portion  of 
his  countrymen  still  think  it  unjustifiable.  The  civil  war,  in- 
deed, has  been  more  discussed,  and  is  less  understood,  than 
any  event  in  English  history.  The  friends  of  liberty  laboured 
under  the  disadvantage  of  which  the  lion  in  the  fable  com- 
plained so  bitterly.  Though  they  were  the  conquerors,  their 
enemies  were  the  painters.  As  a  body,  the  Roundheads  had 
done  their  utmost  to  decry  and  ruin  literature ;  and  literature 
was  even  with  them,  as,  in  the  long-run,  it  always  is  with  its 
enemies.  The  best  book  on  their  side  of  the  question  is  the 
charming  narrative  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson.  May's  History  of  the 
Parliament  is  good ;  but  it  breaks  off  at  the  most  interesting 
crisis  of  the  struggle.  The  performance  of  Ludlow  is  foolish 
and  violent ;  and  most  of  the  later  writers  who  have  espoused  the 
same  cause,  Oldmixon  for  instance,  and  Catherine  Macaulay, 
have,  to  say  the  least,  been  more  distinguished  by  zeal  than 
either  by  candour  or  by  skill.  On  the  other  side  are  the  most 
authoritative  and  the  most  popular  historical  works  in  our  lan- 
guage, that  of  Clarendon,  and  that  of  Hume.  The  former  is 
not  only  ably  written  and  full  of  valuable  information,  but  has 
also  an  air  of  dignity  arid  sincerity  which  makes  even  the  prej- 
udices and  errors  with  which  it  abounds  respectable.  Hume, 
from  whose  fascinating  narrative  the  great  mass  of  the  reading 
public  are  still  contented  to  take  their  opinions,  hated  religion 
so  much  that  he  hated  liberty  for  having  been  allied  with 


28  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

religion,  and  has  pleaded  the  cause  of  tyranny  with  the  dexterity 
of  an  advocate,  while  affecting  the  impartiality  of  a  judge. 

The  public  conduct  of  Milton  must  be  approved  or  con- 
demned according  as  the  resistance  of  ^the  people  to  Charles 
the  First  shall  appear  to  be  justifiable  or  criminal.  We  shall 
therefore  make  no  apology  for  dedicating  a  few  pages  to  the 
discussion  of  that  interesting  and  most  important  question.  We 
shall  not  argue  it  on  general  grounds.  We  shall  not  recur  to 
those  primary  principles  from  which  the  claim  of  any  govern- 
ment to  the  obedience  of  its  subjects  is  to  be  deduced.  We 
are  entitled  to  that  vantage  ground ;  but  we  will  relinquish  it. 
We  are,  on  this  point,  so  confident  of  superiority,  that  we  are 
not  unwilling  to  imitate  the  ostentatious  generosity  of  those 
ancient  knights,  who  vowed  to  joust  without  helmet  or  shield 
against  all  enemies,  and  to  give  their  antagonists  the  advan- 
tage of  sun  and  wind.  We  will  take  the  naked  constitutional 
question.  We  confidently  affirm,  that  every  reason  which  can 
be  urged  in  favour  of  the  Revolution  of  1688  may  be  urged 
with  at  least  equal  force  in  favour  of  what  is  called  the  Great 
Rebellion. 

In  one  respect,  only,  we  think,  can  the  warmest  admirers  of 
Charles  venture  to  say  that  he  was  a  better  sovereign  than  his  son. 
He  was  not,  in  name  and  profession,  a  Papist ;  we  say  in  name 
and  profession,  because  both  Charles  himself  and  his  creature 
Laud,  while  they  abjured  the  innocent  badges  of  Popery,'  re- 
tained all  its  worst 'vices,  a  complete  subjection  of  reason  to 
authority,  a  weak  preference  of  form  to  substance,  a  childish 
passion  for  mummeries,  an  idolatrous  veneration  for  the  priestly 
character,  and,  above  all,  a  merciless  intolerance.  This,  however, 
we  waive.  We  will  concede  that  Charles  was  a  good  Protestant ; 
but  we  say  that  his  Protestantism  does  not  make  the  slightest 
distinction  between  his  case  and  that  of  James. 

The  principles  of  the  Revolution  have  often  been  grossly 
misrepresented,  and  never  more  than  in  the  course  of  the 
present  year.  There  is  a  certain  class  of  men,  who,  while  they 
profess  to  hold  in  reverence  the  great  names  and  great  actions 


MILTON  29 

of  former  times,  never  look  at  them  for  any  other  purpose 
than  in  order  to  find  in  them  some  excuse  for  existing  abuses. 
In  every  venerable  precedent  they  pass  by  what  is  essential, 
and  take  only  what  is  accidental :  they  keep  out  of  sight  what 
is  beneficial,  and  hold  up  to  public  imitation  all  that  is  defec- 
tive. If,  in  any  part  of  any  great  example,  there  be  any  thing 
unsound,  these  flesh-flies  detect  it  with  an  unerring  instinct, 
and  dart  upon  it  with  a  ravenous  delight.  If  some  good  end 
has  been  attained  in  spite  of  them,  they  feel,  with  their 
prototype,  that 

Their  labour  must  be  to  pervert  that  end, 
And  out  of  good  still  to  find  means  of  evil. 

To  the  blessings  which  England  has  derived  from  the  Revo- 
lution these  people  are  utterly  insensible.  The  expulsion  of  a 
tyrant,  the  solemn  recognition  of  popular  rights,  liberty,  se- 
curity, toleration,  all  go  for  nothing  with  them.  One  sect  there 
was,  which,  from  unfortunate  temporary  causes,  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  keep  under  close  restraint.  One  part  of  the  empire 
there  was  so  unhappily  circumstanced,  that  at  that  time  its 
misery  was  necessary  to  our  happiness,  and  its  slavery  to  our 
freedom.  These  are  the  parts  of  the  Revolution  which  the 
politicians  of  whom  we  speak  love  to  contemplate,  and  which 
seem  to  them  not  indeed  to  vindicate,  but  in  some  degree  to 
palliate,  the  good  which  it  has  produced.  Talk  to  them  of 
Naples,  of  Spain,  or  of  South  America.  They  stand  forth 
zealots  for  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Right  which  has  now  come 
back  to  us,  like  a  thief  from  transportation,  under  the  alias 
of  Legitimacy.  But  mention  the  miseries  of  Ireland.  Then 
William  is  a  hero.  Then  Somers  and  Shrewsbury  are  great 
men.  Then  the  Revolution  is  a  glorious  era.  The  very  same 
persons,  who,  in  this  country  never  omit  an  opportunity  of 
reviving  every  wretched  Jacobite  slander  respecting  the  Whigs 
of  that  period,  have  no  sooner  crossed  St.  George's  Channel, 
than  they  begin  to  fill  their  bumpers  to  the  glorious  and  im- 
mortal memory.  They  may  truly  boast  that  they  look  not  at 


30  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

men,  but  at  measures.  So  that  evil  be  done,  they  care  not 
who  does  it ;  the  arbitrary  Charles,  or  the  liberal  William, 
Ferdinand  the  Catholic,  or  Frederic  the  Protestant.  On  such 
occasions  their  deadliest  opponents  may  reckon  upon  their  can- 
did construction.  The  bold  assertions  of  these  people  have  of 
late  impressed  a  large  portion  of  the  public  with  an  opinion  that 
James  the  Second  was  expelled  simply  because  he  was  a  Catholic, 
and  that  the  Revolution  was  essentially  a  Protestant  Revolution. 

But  this  certainly  was  not  the  case ;  nor  can  any  person 
who  has  acquired  more  knowledge  of  the  history  of  those  times 
than  is  to  be  found  in  Goldsmith's  Abridgment  believe  that, 
if  James  had  held  his  own  religious  opinions  without  wish- 
ing to  make  proselytes,  or  if,  wishing  even  to  make  proselytes, 
he  had  contented  himself  with  exerting  only  his  constitutional 
influence  for  that  purpose,  the  Prince  of  Orange  would  ever 
have  been  invited  over.  Our  ancestors,  we  suppose,  knew 
their  own  meaning ;  and,  if  we  may  believe  them,  their  hos- 
tility was  primarily  not  to  popery,  but  to  tyranny.  They  did 
not  drive  out  a  tyrant  because  he  was  a  Catholic ;  but  they 
excluded  Catholics  from  the  crown,  because  they  thought 
them  likely  to  be  tyrants.  The  ground  on  which  they,  in 
their  famous  resolution,  declared  the  throne  vacant,  was  this, 
"  that  James  had  broken  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  king- 
dom." Every  man,  therefore,  who  approves  of  the  Revolution 
of  1688  must  hold  that  the  breach  of  fundamental  laws  on 
the  part  of  the  sovereign  justifies  resistance.  The  question, 
then,  is  this :  Had  Charles  the  First  broken  the  fundamental 
laws  of  England  ? 

No  person  can  answer  in  the  negative,  unless  he  refuses 
credit,  not  merely  to  all  the  accusations  brought  against  Charles 
by  his  opponents,  but  to  the  narratives  of  the  warmest  Royal- 
ists, and  to  the  confessions  of  the  King  himself.  If  there  be 
any  truth  in  any  historian  of  any  party,  who  has  related  the 
events  of  that  reign,  the  conduct  of  Charles,  from  his  acces- 
sion to  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parliament,  had  been  a  con- 
tinued course  of  oppression  and  treachery.  Let  those  who 


MILTON  31 

applaud  the  Revolution  and  condemn  the  Rebellion,  mention 
one  act  of  Jarr^es  the  Second  to  which  a  parallel  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  history  of  his  father.  Let  them  lay  their  fingers 
on  a  single  article  in  the  Declaration  of  Right,  presented  by 
the  two  Houses  to  William  and  Mary,  which  Charles  is  not 
acknowledged  to  have  violated.  He  had,  according  to  the  tes- 
timony of  his  own  friends,  usurped  the  functions  of  the  legis- 
lature, raised  taxes  without  the  consent  of  parliament,  and 
quartered  troops  on  the  people  in  the  most  illegal  and  vexa- 
tious manner.  Not  a  single  session  of  parliament  had  passed 
without  some  unconstitutional  attack  on  the  freedom  of  debate ; 
the  right  of  petition  was  grossly  violated  ;  arbitrary  judgments, 
exorbitant  fines,  and  unwarranted  imprisonments  were  griev- 
ances of  daily  occurrence.  If  these  things  do  not  justify  re- 
sistance, the  Revolution  was  treason ;  if  they  do,  the  Great 
Rebellion  was  laudable. 

But  it  is  said,  why  not  adopt  milder  measures  ?  Why,  after 
the  King  had  consented  to  so  many  reforms,  and  renounced 
so  many  oppressive  prerogatives,  did  the  Parliament  continue 
to  rise  in  their  demands  at  the  risk  of  provoking  a  civil  war  ? 
The  ship-money  had  been  given  up.  The  Star-Chamber  had 
been  abolished.  Provision  had  been  made  for  the  frequent 
convocation  and  secure  deliberation  of  parliaments.  Why  not 
pursue  an  end  confessedly  good  by  peaceable  and  regular 
means  ?  We  recur  again  to  the  analogy  of  the  Revolution. 
Why  was  James  driven  from  the  throne  ?  Why  was  he  not 
retained  upon  conditions  ?  He  too  had  offered  to  call  a  free 
parliament  and  to  submit  to  its  decision  all  the  matters  in 
dispute.  Yet  we  are  in  the  habit  of  praising  our  forefathers, 
who  preferred  a  revolution,  a  disputed  succession,  a  dynasty  of 
strangers,  twenty  years  of  foreign  and  intestine  war,  a  standing 
army,  and  a  national  debt,  to  the  rule,  however  restricted,  of  a 
tried  and  proved  tyrant.  The  Long  Parliament  acted  on  the 
same  principle,  and  is  entitled  to  the  same  praise.  They  could 
not  trust  the  King.  He  had  no  doubt  passed  salutary  laws ; 
but  what  assurance  was  there  that  he  would  not  break  them  ? 


32  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  had  renounced  oppressive  prerogatives ;  but  where  was  the 
security  that  he  would  not  resume  them  ?  The,  nation  had  to 
deal  with  a  man  whom  no  tie  could  bind,  a  man  who  made  and 
broke  promises  with  equal  facility,  a  man  whose  honour  had 
been  a  hundred  times  pawned,  and  never  redeemed. 

Here,  indeed,  the  Long  Parliament  stands  on  still  stronger 
ground  than  the  Convention  of  1688.  No  action  of  James 
can  be  compared  to  the 'conduct  of  Charles  with  respect  to  the 
Petition  of  Right.  The  Lords  and  Commons  present  him  with 
a  bill  in  which  the  constitutional  limits  of  his  power  are  marked 
out.  He  hesitates ;  he  evades ;  at  last  he  bargains  to  give  his 
assent  for  five  subsidies.  The  bill  receives  his  solemn  assent ; 
the  subsidies  are  voted ;  but  no  sooner  is  the  tyrant  relieved, 
than  he  returns  at  once  to  all  the  arbitrary  measures  which  he 
had  bound  himself  to  abandon,  and  violates  all  the  clauses  of 
the  very  Act  which  he  had  been  paid  to  pass. 

For  more  than  ten  years  the  people  had  seen  the  rights 
which  were  theirs  by  a  double  claim,  by  immemorial  inherit- 
ance and  by  recent  purchase,  infringed  by  the  perfidious  king 
who  had  recognised  them.  At  length  circumstances  compelled 
Charles  to  summon  another  parliament :  another  chance  was 
given  to  our  fathers  :  were  they  to  throw  it  away  as  they  had 
thrown  away  the  former  ?  Were  they  again  to  be  cozened  by 
le  Roi  le  veut?  Were  they  again  to  advance  their  money  on 
pledges  which  had  been  forfeited  over  and  over  again  ?  Were 
they  to  lay  a  second  Petition  of  Right  at  the  foot  of  the 
throne,  to  grant  another  lavish  aid  in  exchange  for  another 
unmeaning  ceremony,  and  then  to  take  their  departure,  till, 
after  ten  years  more  of  fraud  and  oppression,  their  prince 
should  again  require  a  supply,  and  again  repay  it  with  a  per- 
jury ?  They  were  compelled  to  choose  whether  they  would 
trust  a  tyrant  or  conquer  him.  We  think  that  they  chose 
wisely  and  nobly. 

The  advocates  of  Charles,  like  the  advocates  of  other  male- 
factors against  whom  overwhelming  evidence  is  produced, 
generally  decline  all  controversy  about  the  facts,  and  content 


MILTON  33 

themselves  with  calling  testimony  to  character.  He  had  so  many 
private  virtues  !  And  had  James  the  Second  no  private  virtues  ? 
Was  Oliver  Cromwell,  his  bitterest  enemies  themselves  being 
judges,  destitute  of  private  virtues  ?  And  what,  after  all,  are  the 
virtues  ascribed  to  Charles  ?  A  religious  zeal,  not  more  sincere 
than  that  of  his  son,  and  fully  as  weak  and  narrow-minded,  and 
a  few  of  the  ordinary  household  decencies  which  half  the  tomb- 
stones in  England  claim  for  those  who  lie  beneath  them.  A 
good  father !  A  good  husband !  Ample  apologies  indeed  for 
fifteen  years  of  persecution,  tyranny,  and  falsehood ! 

We  charge  him  with  having  broken  his  coronation  oath  ; 
and  we  are  told  that  he  kept  his  marriage  vow !  We  accuse 
him  of  having  given  up  his  people  to  the  merciless  inflictions 
of  the  most  hot-headed  and  hard-hearted  of  prelates ;  and  the 
defence  is,  that  he  took  his  little  son  on  his  knee  and  kissed 
him !  We  censure  him  for  having  violated  the  articles  of  the 
Petition  of  Right,  after  having,  for  good  and  valuable  consid- 
eration, promised  to  observe  them ;  and  we  are  informed  that 
he  was  accustomed  to  hear  prayers  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing !  It  is  to  such  considerations  as  these,  together  with  his 
Vandyck  dress,  his  handsome  face,  and  his  peaked  beard,  that 
he  owes,  we  verily  believe,  most  of  his  popularity  with  the 
'present  generation. 

For  ourselves,  we  own  that  we  do  not  understand  the  com- 
mon phrase,  a  good  man,  but  a  bad  king.  We  can  as  easily 
conceive  a  good  man  and  an  unnatural  father,  or  a  good  man 
and  a  treacherous  friend.  We  cannot,  in  estimating  the  char- 
acter of  an  individual,  leave  out  of  our  consideration  his  con- 
duct in  the  most  important  of  all  human  relations  ;  and  if  in 
that  relation  we  find  him  to  have  been  selfish,  cruel,  and  de- 
ceitful, we  shall  take  the  liberty  to  call  him  a  bad  man,  in  spite 
of  all  his  temperance  at  table,  and  all  his  regularity  at  chapel. 

We  cannot  refrain  from  adding  a  few  words  respecting  a 
topic  on  which  the  defenders  of  Charles  are  fond  of  dwelling. 
If,  they  say,  he  governed  his  people  ill,  he  at  least  governed 
them  after  the  example  of  his  predecessors.  If  he  violated 


34  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

their  privileges,  it  was  because  those  privileges  had  not  been 
accurately  defined.  No  act  of  oppression  has  ever  been  imputed 
to  him  which  has  not  a  parallel  in  the  annals  of  the  Tudors. 
This  point  Hume  has  laboured,  with  an  art  which  is  as  dis- 
creditable in  a  historical  work  as  it  would  be  admirable  in  a 
forensic  address.  The  answer  is  short,  clear,  and  decisive. 
Charles  had  assented  to  the  Petition  of  Right.  He  had  re- 
nounced the  oppressive  powers  said  to  have  been  exercised 
by  his  predecessors,  and  he  had  renounced  them  for  money. 
He  was  not  entitled  to  set  up  his  antiquated  claims  against  his 
own  recent  release. 

These  arguments  are  so  obvious,  that  it  may  seem  superflu- 
ous to  dwell  upon  them.  But  those  who  have  observed  how 
much  the  events  of  that  time  are  misrepresented  and  misunder- 
stood will  not  blame  us  for  stating  the  case  simply.  It  is  a 
case  of  which  the  simplest  statement  is  the  strongest. 

The  enemies  of  the  Parliament,  indeed,  rarely  choose  to 
take  issue  on  the  great  points  of  the  question.  They  content 
themselves  with  exposing  some  of  the  crimes  and  follies  to 
which  public  commotions  necessarily  give  birth.  They  bewail 
the  unmerited  fate  of  Strafford.  They  execrate  the  lawless 
violence  of  the  army.  They  laugh  at  the  Scriptural  names  of 
the  preachers.  Major-generals  fleecing  their  districts ;  soldiers 
revelling  on  the  spoils  of  a  ruined  peasantry ;  upstarts,  enriched 
by  the  public  plunder,  taking  possession  of  the  hospitable  fire- 
sides and  hereditary  trees  of  the  old  gentry ;  boys  smashing 
the  beautiful  windows  of  cathedrals ;  Quakers  riding  naked 
through  the  market-place ;  Fifth-monarchy-men  shouting  for 
King  Jesus ;  agitators  lecturing  from  the  tops  of  tubs  on  the 
fate  of  Agag ;  —  all  these,  they  tell  us,  were  the  offspring  of 
the  Great  Rebellion. 

Be  it  so.  We  are  not  careful  to  answer  in  this  matter. 
These  charges,  were  they  infinitely  more  important,  would  not 
alter  our  opinion  of  an  event  which  alone  has  made  us  to 
differ  from  the  slaves  who  crouch  beneath  despotic  sceptres. 
Many  evils,  no  doubt,  were  produced  by  the  civil  war.  They 


MILTON  35 

were  the  price  of  our  liberty.  Has  the  acquisition  been  worth 
the  sacrifice  ?  It  is  the  nature  of  the  Devil  of  tyranny  to  tear 
and  rend  the  body  which  he  leaves.  Are  the  miseries  of 
continued  possession  less  horrible  than  the  struggles  of  the 
tremendous  exorcism  ? 

If  it  were  possible  that  a  people  brought  up  under  an 
intolerant  and  arbitrary  system  could  subvert  that  system  with- 
out acts  of  cruelty  and  folly,  half  the  objections  to  despotic 
power  would  be  removed.  We  should,  in  that  case,  be  com- 
pelled to  acknowledge  that  it  at  least  produces  no  pernicious 
effects  on  the  intellectual  and  moral  character  of  a  nation. 
We  deplore  the  outrages  which  accompany  revolutions.  But 
the  more  violent  the  outrages,  the  more  assured  we  feel  that 
a  revolution  was  necessary.  The  violence  of  those  outrages 
will  always  be  proportioned  to  the  ferocity  and  ignorance  of 
the  people ;  and  the  ferocity  and  ignorance  of  the  people  will 
be  proportioned  to  the  oppression  and  degradation  under  which 
they  have  been  accustomed  to  live.  Thus  it  was  in  our  civil 
war.  The  heads  of  the  church  and  state  reaped  only  that 
which  they  had  sown.  The  Government  had  prohibited  free 
discussion :  it  had  done  its  best  to  keep  the  people  unac- 
quainted with  their  duties  and  their  rights.  The  retribution 
was  just  and  natural.  If  our  rulers  suffered  from  popular  igno- 
rance, it  was  because  they  had  themselves  taken  away  the  key 
of  knowledge.  If  they  were  assailed  with  blind  fury,  it  was 
because  they  had  exacted  an  equally  blind  submission. 

It  is  the  character  of  such  revolutions  that  we  always  see 
the  worst  of  them  at  first.  Till  men  have  been  some  time  free, 
they  know  not  how  to  use  their  freedom.  The  natives  of  wine 
countries  are  generally  sober.  In  climates  where  wine  is  a 
rarity  intemperance  abounds.  A  newly  liberated  people  may 
be  compared  to  a  northern  army  encamped  on  the  Rhine  or 
the  Xeres.  It  is  said  that,  when  soldiers  in  such  a  situation 
first  find  themselves  able  to  indulge  without  restraint  in  such 
a  rare  and  expensive  luxury,  nothing  is  to  be  seen  but  intoxi- 
cation. Soon,  however,  plenty  teaches  discretion ;  and,  after 


36  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

wine  has  been  for  a  few  months  their  daily  fare,  they  become 
more  temperate  than  they  had  ever  been  in  their  own  country. 
In  the  same  manner,  the  final  and  permanent  fruits  of  liberty 
are  wisdom,  moderation,  and  mercy.  Its  immediate  effects  are 
often  atrocious  crimes,  conflicting  errors,  scepticism  on  points 
the  most  clear,  dogmatism  on  points  the  most  mysterious.  It  is 
just  at  this  crisis  that  its  enemies  love  to  exhibit  it.  They  pull 
down  the  scaffolding  from  the  half-finished  edifice ;  they  point 
to  the  flying  dust,  the  falling  bricks,  the  comfortless  rooms,  the 
frightful  irregularity  of  the  whole  appearance ;  and  then  ask 
in  scorn  where  the  promised  splendour  and  comfort  is  to  be 
found.  If  such  miserable  sophisms  were  to  prevail,  there  would 
never  be  a  good  house  or  a  good  government  in  the  world. 

Ariosto  tells  a  pretty  story  of  a  fairy,  who,  by  some  mysteri- 
ous law  of  her  nature,  was  condemned  to  appear  at  certain 
seasons  in  the  form  of  a  foul  and  poisonous  snake.  Those  who 
injured  her  during  the  period  of  her  disguise  were  for  ever  ex- 
cluded from  participation  in  the  blessings  which  she  bestowed. 
But  to  those  who,  in  spite  of  her  loathsome  aspect,  pitied  and 
protected  her,  she  afterwards  revealed  herself  in  the  beautiful 
and  celestial  form  which  was  natural  to  her,  accompanied  their 
steps,  granted  all  their  wishes,  filled  their  houses  with  wealth, 
made  them  happy  in  love  and  victorious  in  war.  Such  a  spirit 
is  Liberty.  At  times  she  takes  the  form  of  a  hateful  reptile. 
She  grovels,  she  hisses,  she  stings.  But  woe  to  those  who  in 
disgust  shall  venture  to  crush  her !  And  happy  are  those  who, 
having  dared  to  receive  her  in  her  degraded  and  frightful 
shape,  shall  at  length  be  rewarded  by  her  in  the  time  of  her 
beauty  and  her  glory ! 

There  is  only  one  cure  for  the  evils  which  newly-acquired 
freedom  produces ;  and  that  cure  is  freedom.  When  a  pris- 
oner first  leaves  his  cell,  he  cannot  bear  the  light  of  day :  he  is 
unable  to  discriminate  colours  or  recognise  faces.  But  the 
remedy  is,  not  to  remand  him  into  his  dungeon,  but  to  accus- 
tom him  to  the  rays  of  the  sun.  The  blaze  of  truth  and  liberty 
may  at  first  dazzle  and  bewilder  nations  which  have  become 


MILTON  37 

half  blind  in  the  house  of  bondage.  But  let  them  gaze  on,  and 
they  will  soon  be  able  to  bear  it.  In  a  few  years  men  learn  to 
reason.  The  extreme  violence  of  opinion  subsides.  Hostile 
theories  correct  each  other.  The  scattered  elements  of  truth 
cease  to  contend,  and  begin  to  coalesce ;  and  at  length  a 
system  of  justice  and  order  is  educed  out  of  the  chaos. 

Many  politicians  of  our  time  are  in  the  habit  of  laying  it 
down  as  a  self-evident  proposition,  that  no  people  ought  to  be 
free  till  they  are  fit  to  use  their  freedom.  The  maxim  is  worthy 
of  the  fool  in  the  old  story,  who  resolved  not  to  go  into  the 
water  till  he  had  learned  to  swim.  If  men  are  to  wait  for  liberty 
till  they  become  wise  and  good  in  slavery,  they  may  indeed 
wait  for  ever. 

Therefore  it  is  that  we  decidedly  approve  of  the  conduct  of 
Milton  and  the  other  wise  and  good  men  who,  in  spite  of  much 
that  was  ridiculous  and  hateful  in  the  conduct  of  their  associ- 
ates, stood  firmly  by  the  cause  of  Public  Liberty.  We  are  not 
aware  that  the  poet  has  been  charged  with  personal  partici- 
pation in  any  of  the  blameable  excesses  of  that  time.  The 
favourite  topic  of  his  enemies  is  the  line  of  conduct  which  he 
pursued  with  regard  to  the  execution  of  the  King.  Of  that 
celebrated  proceeding  we  by  no  means  approve.  Still  we  must 
say,  in  justice  to  the  many  eminent  persons  who  concurred  in 
it,  and  in  justice  more  particularly  to  the  eminent  person  who 
defended  it,  that  nothing  can  be  more  absurd  than  the  imputa- 
tions which,  for  the  last  hundred  and  sixty  years,  it  has  been 
the  fashion  to  cast  upon  the  Regicides.  We  have  throughout 
abstained  from  appealing  to  first  principles.  We  will  not  ap- 
peal to  them  now.  We  recur  again  to  the  parallel  case  of  the 
Revolution.  What  essential  distinction  can  be  drawn  between 
the  execution  of  the  father  and  the  deposition  of  the  son  ? 
What  constitutional  maxim  is  there  which  applies  to  the  former 
and  not  to  the  latter  ?  The  King  can  do  no  wrong.  If  so, 
James  was  as  innocent  as  Charles  could  have  been.  The  min- 
ister only  ought  to  be  responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  Sovereign. 
If  so,  why  not  impeach  Jeffreys  and  retain  James  ?  The  person 


38  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  a  king  is  sacred.  Was  the  person  of  James  considered 
sacred  at  the  Boyne  ?  To  discharge  cannon  against  an  army  in 
which  a  king  is  known  to  be  posted  is  to  approach  pretty  near 
to  regicide.  Charles,  too,  it  should  always  be  remembered,  was 
put  to  death  by  men  who  had  been  exasperated  by  the  hostili- 
ties of  several  years,  and  who  had  never  been  bound  to  him  by 
any  other  tie  than  that  which  was  common  to  them  with  all 
their  fellow-citizens.  Those  who  drove  James  from  his  throne, 
who  seduced  his  army,  who  alienated  his  friends,  who  first  im- 
prisoned him  in  his  palace,  and  then  turned  him  out  of  it,  who 
broke  in  upon  his  very  slumbers  by  imperious  messages,  who 
pursued  him  with  fire  and  sword  from  one  part  of  the  empire 
to  another,  who  hanged,  drew,  and  quartered  his  adherents, 
and  attainted  his  innocent  heir,  were  his  nephew  and  his  two 
daughters.  When  we  reflect  on  all  these  things,  we  are  at  a 
loss  to  conceive  how  the  same  persons  who,  on  the  fifth  of 
November,  thank  God  for  wonderfully  conducting  his  servant 
William,  and  for  making  all  opposition  fall  before  him  until  he 
became  our  King  and  Governor,  can,  on  the  thirtieth  of  January, 
contrive  to  be  afraid  that  the  blood  of  the  Roval  Martyr  may  be 
visited  on  themselves  and  their  children. 

We  disapprove,  we  repeat,  of  the  execution  of  Charles ;  not 
because  the  constitution  exempts  the  King  from  responsibility, 
for  we  know  that  all  such  maxims,  however  excellent,  have 
their  exceptions ;  nor  because  we  feel  any  peculiar  interest  in 
his  character,  for  we  think  that  his  sentence  describes  him  with 
perfect  justice  as  "a  tyrant,  a  traitor,  a  murderer,  and  a  public 
enemy  "  ;  but  because  we  are  convinced  that  the  measure  was 
most  injurious  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  He  whom  it  removed 
was  a  captive  and  a  hostage :  his  heir,  to  whom  the  allegiance 
of  every  Royalist  was  instantly  transferred,  was  at  large.  The 
Presbyterians  could  never  have  been  perfectly  reconciled  to  the 
father  :  they  had  no  such  rooted  enmity  to  the  son.  The  great 
body  of  the  people,  also,  contemplated  that  proceeding  with 
feelings  which,  however  unreasonable,  no  government  could 
safely  venture  to  outrage. 


MILTON  39 

But  though  we  think  the  conduct  of  the  Regicides  blameable, 
that  of  Milton  appears  to  us  in  a  very  different  light.  The  deed 
was  done.  It  could  not  be  undone.  The  evil  was  incurred ; 
and  the  object  was  to  render  it  as  small  as  possible.  We  cen- 
sure the  chiefs  of  the  army  for  not  yielding  to  the  popular 
opinion  ;  but  we  cannot  censure  Milton  for  wishing  to  change 
that  opinion.  The  very  feeling  which  would  have  restrained  us 
from  committing  the  act  would  have  led  us,  after  it  had  been 
committed,  to  defend  it  against  the  ravings  of  servility  and 
superstition.  For  the  sake  of  public  liberty,  we  wish  that  the 
thing  had  not  been  done,  while  the  people  disapproved  of  it. 
But,  for  the  sake  of  public  liberty,  we  should  also  have  wished 
the  people  to  approve  of  it  when  it  was  done.  If  anything 
more  were  wanting  to  the  justification  of  Milton,  the  book  of 
Salmasius  would  furnish  it.  That  miserable  performance  is 
now  with  justice  considered  only  as  a  beacon  to  word-catchers, 
who  wish  to  become  statesmen.  The  celebrity  of  the  man  who 
refuted  it,  the  "  ^Eneae  magni  dextra,"  gives  it  all  its  fame 
with  the  present  generation.  In  that  age  the  state  of  things 
was  different.  It  was  not  then  fully  understood  how  vast  an 
interval  separates  the  mere  classical  scholar  from  the  political 
philosopher.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  a  treatise  which,  bear- 
ing the  name  of  so  eminent  a  critic,  attacked  the  fundamental 
principles  of  all  free  governments,  must,  if  suffered  to  remain 
unanswered,  have  produced  a  most  pernicious  effect  on  the 
public  mind. 

We  wish  to  add  a  few  words  relative  to  another  subject,  on 
which  the  enemies  of  Milton  delight  to  dwell,  his  conduct 
during  the  administration  of  the  Protector.  That  an  enthusi- 
astic votary  of  liberty  should  accept  office  under  a  military 
usurper  seems,  no  doubt,  at  first  sight,  extraordinary.  But  all 
the  circumstances  in  which  the  country  was  then  placed  were 
extraordinary.  The  ambition  of  Oliver  was  of  no  vulgar  kind. 
He  never  seems  to  have  coveted  despotic  power.  He  at  first 
fought  sincerely  and  manfully  for  the  Parliament,  and  never 
deserted  it  till  it  had  deserted  its  duty.  If  he  dissolved  it  by 


40  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

force,  it  was  not  till  he  found  that  the  few  members  who  re- 
mained after  so  many  deaths,  secessions,  and  expulsions,  were 
desirous  to  appropriate  to  themselves  a  power  which  they  held 
only  in  trust,  and  to  inflict  upon  England  the  curse  of  a  Vene- 
tian oligarchy.  But  even  when  thus  placed  by  violence  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  he  did  not  assume  unlimited  power.  He  gave 
the  country  a  constitution  far  more  perfect  than  any  which 
had  at  that  time  been  known  in  the  world.  He  reformed  the 
representative  system  in  a  manner  which  has  extorted  praise 
even  from  Lord  Clarendon.  For  himself  he  demanded,  indeed, 
the  first  place  in  the  commonwealth  ;  but  with  powers  scarcely 
so  great  as  those  of  a  Dutch  stadtholder,  or  an  American  presi- 
dent. He  gave  the  parliament  a  voice  in  the  appointment  of 
ministers,  and  left  to  it  the  whole  legislative  authority,  not  even 
reserving  to  himself  a  veto  on  its  enactments ;  and  he  did  not 
require  that  the  chief  magistracy  should  be  hereditary  in  his 
family.  Thus  far,  we  think,  if  the  circumstances  of  the  time 
and  the  opportunities  which  he  had  of  aggrandizing  himself 
be  fairly  considered,  he  will  not  lose  by  comparison  with  Wash- 
ington or  Bolivar.  Had  his  moderation  been  met  by  corre- 
sponding moderation,  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  he  would 
have  overstepped  the  line  which  he  had  traced  for  himself. 
But  when  he  found  that  his  parliaments  questioned  the  authority 
under  which  they  met,  and  that  he  was  in  danger  of  being  de- 
prived of  the  restricted  power  which  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
his  personal  safety,  then,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  he  adopted 
a  more  arbitrary  policy. 

Yet,  though  we  believe  that  the  intentions  of  Cromwell  were 
at  first  honest,  though  we  believe  that  he  was  driven  from  the 
noble  course  which  he  had  marked  out  for  himself  by  the 
almost  irresistible  force  of  circumstances,  though  we  admire,  in 
common  with  all  men  of  all  parties,  the  ability  and  energy  of 
his  splendid  administration,  we  are  not  pleading  for  arbitrary 
and  lawless  power,  even  in  his  hands.  We  know  that  a  good 
constitution  is  infinitely  better  than  the  best  despot.  But  we 
suspect  that,  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  the  violence  of 


MILTON  41 

religious  and  political  enmities  rendered  a  stable  and  happy 
settlement  next  to  impossible.  The  choice  lay,  not  between 
Cromwell  and  liberty,  but  between  Cromwell  and  the  Stuarts. 
That  Milton  chose  well,  no  man  can  doubt  who  fairly  compares 
the  events  of  the  protectorate  with  those  of  the  thirty  years 
which  succeeded  it,  the  darkest  and  most  disgraceful  in  the 
English  annals.  Cromwell  was  evidently  laying,  though  in  an 
irregular  manner,  the  foundations  of  an  admirable  system. 
Never  before  had  religious  liberty  and  the  freedom  of  discus- 
sion been  enjoyed  in  a  greater  degree.  Never  had  the  national 
honour  been  better  upheld  abroad,  or  the  seat  of  justice  better 
filled  at  home.  And  it  was  rarely  that  any  opposition  which 
stopped  short  of  open  rebellion  provoked  the  resentment  of  the 
liberal  and  magnanimous  usurper.  The  institutions  which  he 
had  established,  as  set  down  in  the  Instrument  of  Govern- 
ment, and  the  Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  were  excellent. 
His  practice,  it  is  true,  too  often  departed  from  the  theory  of 
these  institutions.  But,  had  he  lived  a  few  years  longer,  it  is 
probable  that  his  institutions  would  have  survived  him,  and 
that  his  arbitrary  practice  would  have  died  with  him.  His 
power  had  not  been  consecrated  by  ancient  prejudices.  It  was 
upheld  only  by  his  great  personal  qualities.  Little,  therefore, 
was  to  be  dreaded  from  a  second  protector,  unless  he  were  also 
a  second  Oliver  Cromwell.  The  events  which  followed  his 
decease  are  the  most  complete  vindication  of  those  who  exerted 
themselves  to  uphold  his  authority.  His  death  dissolved  the 
whole  frame  of  society.  The  army  rose  against  the  Parlia- 
ment, the  different  corps  of  the  army  against  each  other.  Sect 
raved  against  sect.  Party  plotted  against  party.  The  Presby- 
terians, in  their  eagerness  to  be  revenged  on  the  Independents, 
sacrificed  their  own  liberty,  and  deserted  all  their  old  principles. 
Without  casting  one  glance  on  the  past,  or  requiring  one 
stipulation  for  the  future,  they  threw  down  their  freedom  at 
the  feet  of  the  most  frivolous  and  heartless  of  tyrants. 

Then  came  those  days,  never  to  be  recalled  without  a  blush, 
the  days  of  servitude   without  loyalty  and   sensuality  without 


42  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

love,  of  dwarfish  talents  and  gigantic  vices,  the  paradise  of  cold 
hearts  and  narrow  minds,  the  golden  age  of  the  coward,  the 
bigot,  and  the  slave.  The  King  cringed  to  his  rival  that  he 
might  trample  on  his  people,  sank  into  a  viceroy  of  France, 
and  pocketed,  with  complacent  infamy,  her  degrading  insults, 
and  her  more  degrading  gold.  The  caresses  of  harlots,  and 
the  jests  of  buffoons,  regulated  the  policy  of  the  State.  The 
government  had  just  ability  enough  to  deceive,  and  just 
religion  enough  to  persecute.  The  principles  of  liberty  were 
the  scoff  of  every  grinning  courtier,  and  the  Anathema  Mara- 
natha  of  every  fawning  dean.  In  every  high  place,  worship 
was  paid  to  Charles  and  James,  Belial  and  Moloch ;  and 
England  propitiated  those  obscene  and  cruel  idols  with  the 
blood  of  her  best  and  bravest  children.  Crime  succeeded  to 
crime,  and  disgrace  to  disgrace,  till  the  race  accursed  of  God 
and  man  was  a  second  time  driven  forth,  to  wander  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and  to  be  a  by-word  and  a  shaking  of  the 
head  to  the  nations. 

Most  of  the  remarks  which  we  have  hitherto  made  on  the 
public  character  of  Milton,  apply  to  him  only  as  one  of  a  large 
body.  We  shall  proceed  to  notice  some  of  the  peculiarities 
which  distinguished  him  from  his  contemporaries.  And  for 
that  purpose  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  short  survey  of  the 
parties  into  which  the  political  world  was  at  that  time  divided. 
We  must  premise  that  our  observations  are  intended  to  apply 
only  to  those  who  adhered,  from  a  sincere  preference,  to  one 
or  to  the  other  side.  In  days  of  public  commotion,  every 
faction,  like  an  Oriental  army,  is  attended  by  a  crowd  of  camp- 
followers,  an  useless  and  heartless  rabble,  who  prowl  round  its 
line  of  march  in  the  hope  of  picking  up  something  under  its 
protection,  but  desert  it  in  the  day  of  battle,  and  often  join  to 
exterminate  it  after  a  defeat.  England,  at  the  time  of  which  we 
are  treating,  abounded  with  fickle  and  selfish  politicians,  who 
transferred  their  support  to  every  government  as  it  rose,  who 
kissed  the  hand  of  the  King  in  1640,  and  spat  in  his  face 
in  1649,  who  shouted  with  equal  glee  when  Cromwell  was 


MILTON  43 

inaugurated  in  Westminster  Hall,  and  when  he  was  dug  up  to 
be  hanged  at  Tyburn,  who  dined  on  calves'  heads,  or  stuck  up 
oak  branches,  as  circumstances  altered,  without  the  slightest 
shame  or  repugnance.  These  we  leave  out  of  the  account. 
We  take  our  estimate  of  parties  from  those  who  really 
deserved  to  be  called  partisans. 

We  would  speak  first  of  the  Puritans,  the  most  remarkable 
body  of  men,  perhaps,  which  the  world  has  ever  produced. 
The  odious  and  ridiculous  parts  of  their  character  lie  on  the 
surface.  He  that  runs  may  read  them ;  nor  have  there  been 
wanting  attentive  and  malicious  observers  to  point  them  out. 
For  many  years  after  the  Restoration  they  were  the  theme  of 
unmeasured  invective  and  derision.  They  were  exposed  to 
the  utmost  licentiousness  of  the  press  and  of  the  stage,  at  the 
time  when  the  press  and  the  stage  were  most  licentious.  They 
were  not  men  of  letters ;  they  were,  as  a  body,  unpopular ;  they 
could  not  defend  themselves ;  and  the  public  would  not  take 
them  under  its  protection.  They  were  therefore  abandoned, 
without  reserve,  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  satirists  and 
dramatists.  The  ostentatious  simplicity  of  their  dress,  their 
sour  aspect,  their  nasal  twang,  their  stiff  posture,  their  long 
graces,  their  Hebrew  names,  the  Scriptural  phrases  which  they 
introduced  on  every  occasion,  their  contempt  of  human  learn- 
ing, their  detestation  of  polite  amusements,  were  indeed  fair 
game  for  the  laughers.  But  it  is  not  from  the  laughers  alone 
that  the  philosophy  of  history  is  to  be  learned.  And  he  who 
approaches  this  subject  should  carefully  guard  against  the 
influence  of  that  potent  ridicule  which  has  already  misled  so 
many  excellent  writers. 

Ecco  il  fonte  del  riso,  ed  ecco  il  rio 
Che  mortal!  perigli  in  se  contiene : 
Hor  qui  tcncr  a  fren  nostro  desio, 
Ed  esser  cauti  molto  a  noi  conviene. 

Those  who  roused  the  people  to  resistance,  who  directed 
their  measures  through  a  long  series  of  eventful  years,  who 
formed,  out  of  the  most  unpromising  materials,  the  finest  army 


44  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

that  Europe  had  ever  seen,  who  trampled  down  King,  Church, 
and  Aristocracy,  who,  in  the  short  intervals  of  domestic  sedi- 
tion and  rebellion,  made  the  name  of  England  terrible  to 
every  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  were  no  vulgar  fanatics. 
Most  of  their  absurdities  were  mere  external  badges,  like  the 
signs  of  Freemasonry,  or  the  dresses  of  friars.  We  regret  that 
these  badges  were  not  more  attractive.  We  regret  that  a  body 
to  whose  courage  and  talents  mankind  has  owed  inestimable 
obligations  had  not  the  lofty  elegance  which  distinguished 
some  of  the  adherents  of  Charles  the  First,  or  the  easy  good- 
breeding  for  which  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second  was 
celebrated.  But,  if  we  must  make  our  choice,  we  shall,  like 
Bassanio  in  the  play,  turn  from  the  specious  caskets  which 
contain  only  the  Death's-head  and  the  Fool's-head,  and  fix  on 
the  plain  leaden  chest  which  conceals  the  treasure. 

The  Puritans  were  men  whose  minds  had  derived  a  peculiar 
character  from  the  daily  contemplation  of  superior  beings  and 
eternal  interests.  Not  content  with  acknowledging,  in  general 
terms,  an  overruling  Providence,  they  habitually  ascribed  every 
event  to  the  will  of  the  Great  Being,  for  whose  power  nothing 
was  too  vast,  for  whose  inspection  nothing  was  too  minute. 
To  know  him,  to  serve  him,  to  enjoy  him,  was  with  them  the 
great  end  of  existence.  They  rejected  with  contempt  the 
ceremonious  homage  which  other  sects  substituted  for  the  pure 
worship  of  the  soul.  Instead  of  catching  occasional  glimpses 
of  the  Deity  through  an  obscuring  veil,  they  aspired  to  gaze 
full  on  his  intolerable  brightness,  and  to  commune  with  him 
face  to  face.  Hence  originated  their  contempt  for  terrestrial 
distinctions.  The  difference  between  the  greatest  and  the 
meanest  of  mankind  seemed  to  vanish,  when  compared  with 
the  boundless  interval  which  separated  the  whole  race  from 
Him  on  whom  their  own  eyes  were  constantly  fixed.  They 
recognized  no  title  to  superiority  but  his  favour ;  and,  confident 
of  that  favour,  they  despised  all  the  accomplishments  and  all 
the  dignities  of  the  world.  If  they  were  unacquainted  with 
the  works  of  philosophers  and  poets,  they  were  deeply  read  in 


MILTON  45 

the  oracles  of  God.  If  their  names  were  not  found  in  the 
registers  of  heralds,  they  were  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Life. 
If  their  steps  were  not  accompanied  by  a  splendid  train  of 
menials,  legions  of  ministering  angels  had  charge  over  them. 
Their  palaces  were  houses  not  made  with  hands ;  their  diadems 
crowns  of  glory  which  should  never  fade  away.  On  the  rich 
and  the  eloquent,  on  nobles  and  priests,  they  looked  down  with 
contempt :  for  they  esteemed  themselves  rich  in  a  more  precious 
treasure,  and  eloquent  in  a  more  sublime  language,  nobles  by 
the  right  of  an  earlier  creation,  and  priests  by  the  imposition 
of  a  mightier  hand.  The  very  meanest  of  them  was  a  being 
to  whose  fate  a  mysterious  and  terrible  importance  belonged, 
on  whose  slightest  action  the  spirits  of  light  and  darkness 
looked  with  anxious  interest,  who  had  been  destined,  before 
heaven  and  earth  were  created,  to  enjoy  a  felicity  which 
should  continue  when  heaven  and  earth  should  have  passed 
away.  Events  which  short-sighted  politicians  ascribed  to  earthly 
causes  had  been  ordained  on  his  account.  For  his  sake 
empires  had  risen,  and  flourished,  and  decayed.  For  his  sake 
the  Almighty  had  proclaimed  his  will  by  the  pen  of  the 
Evangelist,  and  the  harp  of  the  prophet.  He  had  been  wrested 
by  no  common  deliverer  from  the  grasp  of  no  common  foe. 
He  had  been  ransomed  by  the  sweat  of  no  vulgar  agony,  by 
the  blood  of  no  earthly  sacrifice.  It  was  for  him  that  the  sun 
had  been  darkened,  that  the  rocks  had  been  rent,  that  the 
dead  had  risen,  that  all  nature  had  shuddered  at  the  sufferings 
of  her  expiring  God. 

Thus  the  Puritan  was  made  up  of  two  different  men  —  the 
one  all  self-abasement,  penitence,  gratitude,  passion  ;  the  other 
proud,  calm,  inflexible,  sagacious.  He  prostrated  himself  in 
the  dust  before  his  Maker :  but  he  set  his  foot  on  the  neck  of 
his  king.  In  his  devotional  retirement  he  prayed  with  con- 
vulsions, and  groans,  and  tears.  He  was  half-maddened  by 
glorious  or  terrible  illusions.  He  heard  the  lyres  of  angels  or 
the  tempting  whispers  of  fiends.  He  caught  a  gleam  of  the 
Beatific  Vision,  or  woke  screaming  from  dreams  of  everlasting 


46  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

fire.  Like  Vane,  he  thought  himself  intrusted  with  the  sceptre 
of  the  millennial  year.  Like  Fleetwood,  he  cried  in  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  soul  that  God  had  hid  his  face  from  him.  But 
when  he  took  his  seat  in  the  council,  or  girt  on  his  sword  for 
war,  these  tempestuous  workings  of  the  soul  had  left  no  per- 
ceptible trace  behind  them.  People  who  saw  nothing  of  the 
godly  but  their  uncouth  visages,  and  heard  nothing  from  them 
but  their  groans  and  their  whining  hymns,  might  laugh  at  them. 
But  those  had  little  reason  to  laugh  who  encountered  them  in 
the  hall  of  debate  or  in  the  field  of  battle.  These  fanatics 
brought  to  civil  and  military  affairs  a  coolness  of  judgment  and 
an  immutability  of  purpose  which  some  writers  have  thought 
inconsistent  with  their  religious  zeal,  but  which  were  in  fact 
the  necessary  effects  of  it.  The  intensity  of  their  feelings  on 
one  subject  made  them  tranquil  on  every  other.  One  over- 
powering sentiment  had  subjected  to  itself  pity  and  hatred, 
ambition  and  fear.  Death  had  lost  its  terrors  and  pleasure  its 
charms.  They  had  their  smiles  and  their  tears,  their  raptures 
and  their  sorrows,  but  not  for  the  things  of  this  world. 
Enthusiasm  had  made  them  Stoics,  had  cleared  their  minds 
from  every  vulgar  passion  and  prejudice,  and  raised  them  above 
the  influence  of  danger  and  of  corruption.  It  sometimes  might 
lead  them  to  pursue  unwise  ends,  but  never  to  choose  unwise 
means.  They  went  through  the  world,  like  Sir  Artegal's  iron 
man  Talus  with  his  flail,  crushing  and  trampling  down  oppres- 
sors, mingling  with  human  beings,  but  having  neither  part  nor 
lot  in  human  infirmities ;  insensible  to  fatigue,  to  pleasure,  and 
to  pain  ;  not  to  be  pierced  by  any  weapon,  not  to  be  withstood 
by  any  barrier. 

Such  we  believe  to  have  been  the  character  of  the  Puritans. 
We  perceive  the  absurdity  of  their  manners.  We  dislike  the 
sullen  gloom  of  their  domestic  habits.  We  acknowledge  that 
the  tone  of  their  minds  was  often  injured  by  straining  after 
things  too  high  for  mortal  reach ;  and  we  know  that,  in  spite 
of  their  hatred  of  Popery,  they  too  often  fell  into  the  worst 
vices  of  that  bad  system,  intolerance  and  extravagant  austerity, 


MILTON  47 

that  they  had  their  anchorites  and  their  crusades,  their 
Dunstans  and  their  De  Montforts,  their  Dominies  and  their 
Escobars.  Yet,  when  all  circumstances  are  taken  into  consid- 
eration, we  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  them  a  brave,  a  wise, 
an  honest,  and  an  useful  body. 

The  Puritans  espoused  the  cause  of  civil  liberty  mainly 
because  it  was  the  cause  of  religion.  There  was  another  party, 
by  no  means  numerous,  but  distinguished  by  learning  and 
ability,  which  acted  with  them  on  very  different  principles. 
We  speak  of  those  whom  Cromwell  was  accustomed  to  call  the 
Heathens  —  men  who  were,  in  the  phraseology  of  that  time, 
doubting  Thomases  or  careless  Gallios  with  regard  to  religious 
subjects,  but  passionate  worshippers  of  freedom.  Heated  by 
the  study  of  ancient  literature,  they  set  up  their  country  as 
their  idol,  and  proposed  to  themselves  the  heroes  of  Plutarch 
as  their  examples.  They  seem  to  have  borne  some  resem- 
blance to  the  Brissotines  of  the  French  Revolution.  But  it  is 
not  very  easy  to  draw  the  line  of  distinction  between  them 
and  their  devout  associates,  whose  tone  and  manner  they 
sometimes  found  it  convenient  to  affect,  and  sometimes,  it  is 
probable,  imperceptibly  adopted. 

We  now  come  to  the  Royalists.  We  shall  attempt  to  speak 
of  them,  as  we  have  spoken  of  their  antagonists,  with  perfect 
candour.  We  shall  not  charge  upon  a  whole  party  the  profli- 
gacy and  baseness  of  the  horse-boys,  gamblers,  and  bravoes, 
whom  the  hope  of  licence  and  plunder  attracted  from  all  the 
dens  of  Whitefriars  to  the  standard  of  Charles,  and  who  dis- 
graced their  associates  by  excesses  which,  under  the  stricter 
discipline  of  the  Parliamentary  armies,  were  never  tolerated. 
We  will  select  a  more  favourable  specimen.  Thinking  as  we 
do  that  the  cause  of  the  King  was  the  cause  of  bigotry  and 
tyranny,  we  yet  cannot  refrain  from  looking  with  compla- 
cency on  the  character  of  the  honest  old  Cavaliers.  We  feel  a 
national  pride  in  comparing  them  with  the  instruments  which 
the  despots  of  other  countries  are  compelled  to  employ,  with 
the  mutes  who  throng  their  antechambers,  and  the  Janissaries 


48  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

who  mount  guard  at  their  gates.  Our  royalist  countrymen 
were  not  heartless,  dangling  courtiers,  bowing  at  every  step 
and  simpering  at  every  word.  They  were  not  mere  machines 
for  destruction  dressed  up  in  uniforms,  caned  into  skill,  in- 
toxicated into  valour,  defending  without  love,  destroying 
without  hatred.  There  was  a  freedom  in  their  subserviency,  a 
nobleness  in  their  very  degradation.  The  sentiment  of  indi- 
vidual independence  was  strong  within  them.  •  They  were 
indeed  misled,  but  by  no  base  or  selfish  motive.  Compassion 
and  romantic  honour,  the  prejudices  of  childhood,  and  the 
venerable  names  of  history,  threw  over  them  a  spell  potent  as 
that  of  Duessa ;  and,  like  the  Red-Cross  Knight,  they  thought 
that  they  were  doing  battle  for  an  injured  beauty,  while  they 
defended  a  false  and  loathsome  sorceress.  In  truth,  they 
scarcely  entered  at  all  into  the  merits  of  the  political  question. 
It  was  not  for  a  treacherous  king  or  an  intolerant  church  that 
they  fought,  but  for  the  old  banner  which  had  waved  in  so 
many  battles  over  the  heads  of  their  fathers,  and  for  the  altars 
at  which  they  had  received  the  hands  of  their  brides.  Though 
nothing  could  be  more  erroneous  than  their  political  opinions, 
they  possessed,  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  their  adversaries, 
those  qualities  which  are  the  grace  of  private  life.  With  many 
of  the  vices  of  the  Round  Table,  they  had  also  many  of  its 
virtues,  courtesy,  generosity,  veracity,  tenderness,  and  respect 
for  women.  They  had  far  more  both  of  profound  and  of 
polite  learning  than  the  Puritans.  Their  manners  were  more 
engaging,  their  tempers  more  amiable,  their  tastes  more 
elegant,  and  their  households  more  cheerful. 

Milton  did  not  strictly  belong  to  any  of  the  classes  which 
we  have  described.  He  was  not  a  Puritan.  He  was  not  a 
freethinker.  He  was  not  a  Royalist.  In  his  character  the 
noblest  qualities  of  every  party  were  combined  in  harmonious 
union.  From  the  Parliament  and  from  the  Court,  from  the  con- 
venticle and  from  the  Gothic  cloister,  from  the  gloomy  and 
sepulchral  circles  of  the  Roundheads,  and  from  the  Christmas 
revel  of  the  hospitable  Cavalier,  his  nature  selected  and  drew 


MILTON  49 

to  itself  whatever  was  great  and  good,  while  it  rejected  all  the 
base  and  pernicious  ingredients  by  which  those  finer  elements 
were  denied.  Like  the  Puritans,  he  lived 

As  ever  in  his  great  taskmaster's  eye. 

Like  them,  he  kept  his  mind  continually  fixed  on  an  Almighty 
Judge  and  an  eternal  reward.  And  hence  he  acquired  their 
contempt  of  external  circumstances,  their  fortitude,  their  tran- 
quillity, their  inflexible  resolution.  But  not  the  coolest  sceptic 
or  the  most  profane  scoffer  was  more  perfectly  free  from  the 
contagion  of  their  frantic  delusions,  their  savage  manners, 
their  ludicrous  jargon,  their  scorn  of  science,  and  their  aversion 
to  pleasure.  Hating  tyranny  with  a  perfect  hatred,  he  had 
nevertheless  all  the  estimable  and  ornamental  qualities  which 
were  almost  entirely  monopolized  by  the  party  of  the  tyrant. 
There  was  none  who  had  a  stronger  sense  of  the  value  of 
literature,  a  finer  relish  for  every  elegant  amusement,  or  a 
more  chivalrous  delicacy  of  honour  and  love.  Though  his 
opinions  were  democratic,  his  tastes  and  his  associations  were 
such  as  harmonize  best  with  monarchy  and  aristocracy.  He 
was  under  the  influence  of  all  the  feelings  by  which  the 
gallant  Cavaliers  were  misled.  But  of  those  feelings  he  was 
the  master,  and  not  the  slave.  Like  the  hero  of  Homer,  he 
enjoyed  all  the  pleasures  of  fascination :  but  he  was  not 
fascinated.  He  listened  to  the  song  of  the  sirens ;  yet  he 
glided  by  without  being  seduced  to  their  fatal  shore.  He 
tasted  the  cup  of  Circe ;  but  he  bore  about  him  a  sure  anti- 
dote against  the  effects  of  its  bewitching  sweetness.  The 
illusions  which  captivated  his  imagination  never  impaired  his 
reasoning  powers.  The  statesman  was  proof  against  the  splen- 
dour, the  solemnity,  and  the  romance  which  enchanted  the 
poet.  Any  person  who  will  contrast  the  sentiments  expressed 
in  his  treatises  on  Prelacy  with  the  exquisite  lines  on  eccle- 
siastical architecture  and  music  in  the  Penseroso,  which  was 
published  about  the  same  time,  will  understand  our  meaning. 
This  is  an  inconsistency  which,  more  than  anything  else, 


50  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

raises  his  character  in  our  estimation,  because  it  shows  how 
many  private  tastes  and  feelings  he  sacrificed,  in  order  to  do 
what  he  considered  his  duty  to  mankind.  It  is  the  very 
struggle  of  the  noble  Othello.  His  heart  relents ;  but  his 
hand  is  firm.  He  does  naught  in  hate,  but  all  in  honour. 
He  kisses  the  beautiful  deceiver  before  he  destroys  her. 

That  from  which  the  public  character  of  Milton  derives  its 
great  and  peculiar  splendour  still  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
If  he  exerted  himself  to  overthrow  a  forsworn  king  and  a 
persecuting  hierarchy,  he  exerted  himself  in  conjunction  with 
others.  But  the  glory  of  the  battle  which  he  fought  for  the 
species  of  freedom  which  is  the  most  valuable,  and  which  was 
then  the  least  understood,  the  freedom  of  the  human  mind,  is 
all  his  own.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  among  his 
contemporaries  raised  their  voices  against  ship-money  and  the 
Star-chamber ;  but  there  were  few  indeed  who  discerned 
the  more  fearful  evils  of  moral  and  intellectual  slavery,  and 
the  benefits  which  would  result  from  the  liberty  of  the  press 
and  the  unfettered  exercise  of  private  judgment.  These  were 
the  objects  which  Milton  justly  conceived  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant. He  was  desirous  that  the  people  should  think  for 
themselves  as  well  as  tax  themselves,  and  should  be  eman- 
cipated from  the  dominion  of  prejudice  as  well  as  from  that 
of  Charles.  He  knew  that  those  who,  with  the  best  intentions, 
overlooked  these  schemes  of  reform,  and  contented  themselves 
with  pulling  down  the  King  and  imprisoning  the  malignants, 
acted  like  the  heedless  brothers  in  his  own  poem,  who,  in 
their  eagerness  to  disperse  the  train  of  the  sorcerer,  neglected 
the  means  of  liberating  the  captive.  They  thought  only  of 
conquering  when  they  should  have  thought  of  disenchanting. 

Oh,  ye  mistook !    Ye  should  have  snatched  his  wand 
And  bound  him  fast.    Without  the  rod  reversed, 
And  backward  mutters  of  dissevering  power, 
We  cannot  free  the  lady  that  sits  here 
Bound  in  strong  fetters  fixed  and  motionless. 


MILTON  5 1 

To  reverse  the  rod,  to  spell  the  charm  backward,  to  break 
the  ties  which  bound  a  stupefied  people  to  the  seat  of  enchant- 
ment, was  the  noble  aim  of  Milton.  To  this  all  his  public 
conduct  was  directed.  For  this  he  joined  the  Presbyterians : 
for  this  he  forsook  them.  He  fought  their  perilous  battle ;  but 
he  turned  away  with  disdain  from  their  insolent  triumph.  He 
saw  that  they,  like  those  whom  they  had  vanquished,  were 
hostile  to  the  liberty  of  thought.  He  therefore  joined  the 
Independents,  and  called  upon  Cromwell  to  break  the  secular 
chain,  and  to  save  free  conscience  from  the  paw  of  the 
Presbyterian  wolf.  With  a  view  to  the  same  great  object,  he 
attacked  the  licensing  system,  in  that  sublime  treatise  which 
every  statesman  should  wear  as  a  sign  upon  his  hand  and  as 
frontlets  between  his  eyes.  His  attacks  were,  in  general,  di- 
rected less  against  particular  abuses  than  against  those  deeply- 
seated  errors  on  which  almost  all  abuses  are  founded  —  the 
servile  worship  of  eminent  men  and  the  irrational  dread  of 
innovation. 

That  he  might  shake  the  foundations  of  these  debasing 
sentiments  more  effectually,  he  always  selected  for  himself  the 
boldest  literary  services.  He  never  came  up  in  the  rear,  when 
the  outworks  had  been  carried  and  the  breach  entered.  He 
pressed  into  the  forlorn  hope.  At  the  beginning  of  the  changes, 
he  wrote  with  incomparable  energy  and  eloquence  against  the 
bishops.  But,  when  his  opinion  seemed  likely  to  prevail,  he 
passed  on  to  other  subjects,  and  abandoned  prelacy  to  the 
crowd  of  writers  who  now  hastened  to  insult  a  falling  party. 
There  is  no  more  hazardous  enterprise  than  that  of  bearing 
the  torch  of  truth  into  those  dark  and  infected  recesses  in 
which  no  light  has  ever  shone.  But  it  was  the  choice  and  the 
pleasure  of  Milton  to  penetrate  the  noisome  vapours  and  to 
brave  the  terrible  explosion.  Those  who  most  disapprove  of 
his  opinions  must  respect  the  hardihood  with  which  he  main- 
tained them.  He,  in  general,  left  to  others  the  credit  of  ex- 
pounding and  defending  the  popular  parts  of  his  religious  and 


52  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

political  creed.  He  took  his  own  stand  upon  those  which  the 
great  body  of  his  countrymen  reprobated  as  criminal  or  derided 
as  paradoxical.  He  stood  up  for  divorce  and  regicide.  He 
attacked  the  prevailing  systems  of  education.  His  radiant  and 
beneficent  career  resembled  that  of  the  god  of  light  and  fertility. 

Nitor  in  adversum ;  nee  me,  qui  caetera,  vincit 
Impetus,  et  rapido  contrarius  evehor  orbi. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  prose  writings  of  Milton  should, 
in  our  time,  be  so  little  read.  As  compositions,  they  deserve 
the  attention  of  every  man  who  wishes  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  full  power  of  the  English  language.  They  abound 
with  passages  compared  with  which  the  finest  declamations  of 
Burke  sink  into  insignificance.  They  are  a  perfect  field  of 
cloth  of  gold.  The  style  is  stiff  with  gorgeous  embroidery.  Not 
even  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Paradise  Lost  has  the  great 
poet  ever  risen  higher  than  in  those  parts  of  his  controversial 
works  in  which  his  feelings,  excited  by  conflict,  find  a  vent  in 
bursts  of  devotional  and  lyric  rapture.  It  is,  to  borrow  his 
own  majestic  language,  "a  sevenfold  chorus  of  hallelujahs  and 
harping  symphonies." 

We  had  intended  to  look  more  closely  at  these  performances, 
to  analyze  the  peculiarities  of  the  diction,  to  dwell  at  some 
length  on  the  sublime  wisdom  of  the  Areopagitica  and  the 
nervous  rhetoric  of  the  Iconoclast,  and  to  point  out  some  of 
those  magnificent  passages  which  occur  in  the  Treatise  of 
Reformation,  and  the  Animadversions  on  the  Remonstrant. 
But  the  length  to  which  our  remarks  have  already  extended 
renders  this  impossible. 

We  must  conclude.  And  yet  we  can  scarcely  tear  ourselves 
away  from  the  subject.  The  days  immediately  following  the 
publication  of  this  relic  of  Milton  appear  to  be  peculiarly  set 
apart,  and  consecrated  to  his  memory.  And  we  shall  scarcely 
be  censured  if,  on  this  his  festival,  we  be  found  lingering  near 
his  shrine,  how  worthless  soever  may  be  the  offering  which  we 
bring  to  it.  While  this  book  lies  on  our  table  we  seem  to  be 


MILTON  53 

contemporaries  of  the  writer.  We  are  transported  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  back.  We  can  almost  fancy  that  we  are  visiting 
him  in  his  small  lodging;  that  we  see  him  sitting  at  the  old 
organ  beneath  the  faded  green  hangings ;  that  we  can  catch 
the  quick  twinkle  of  his  eyes,  rolling  in  vain  to  find  the  day ; 
that  we  are  reading  in  the  lines  of  his  noble  countenance  the 
proud  and  mournful  history  of  his  glory  and  his  affliction. 
We  image  to  ourselves  the  breathless  silence  in  which  we 
should  listen  to  his  slightest  word,  the  passionate  veneration 
with  which  we  should  kneel  to  kiss  his  hand  and  weep  upon 
it,  the  earnestness  with  which  we  should  endeavour  to  console 
him,  if  indeed  such  a  spirit  could  need  consolation,  for  the 
neglect  of  an  age  unworthy  of  his  talents  and  his  virtues,  the 
eagerness  with  which  we  should  contest  with  his  daughters,  or 
with  his  Quaker  friend  Elwood,  the  privilege  of  reading  Homer 
to  him,  or  of  taking  down  the  immortal  accents  which  flowed 
from  his  lips. 

These  are  perhaps  foolish  feelings.  Yet  we  cannot  be 
ashamed  of  them ;  nor  shall  we  be  sorry  if  what  we  have 
written  shall  in  any  degree  excite  them  in  other  minds.  We 
are  not  much  in  the  habit  of  idolizing  either  the  living  or  the 
dead.  And  we  think  that  there  is  no  more  certain  indication  of 
a  weak  and  ill-regulated  intellect  than  that  propensity  which,  for 
want  of  a  better  name,  we  will  venture  to  chrjsten  Boswellism. 
But  there  are  a  few  characters  which  have  stood  the  closest 
scrutiny  and  the  severest  tests,  which  have  been  tried  in  the 
furnace  and  have  proved  pure,  which  have  been  weighed  in 
the  balance  and  have  not  been  found  wanting,  which  have 
been  declared  sterling  by  the  general  consent  of  mankind,  and 
which  are  visibly  stamped  with  the  image  and  superscription 
of  the  Most  High.  These  great  men  we  trust  that  we  know 
how  to  prize ;  and  of  these  was  Milton.  The  sight  of  his 
books,  the  sound  of  his  name,  are  pleasant  to  us.  His  thoughts 
resemble  those  celestial  fruits  and  flowers  which  the  Virgin 
Martyr  of  Massinger  sent  down  from  the  gardens  of  Paradise 
to  the  earth,  and  which  were  distinguished  from  the  productions 


54  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  other  soils,  not  only  by  superior  bloom  and  sweetness,  but 
by  miraculous  efficacy  to  invigorate  and  to  heal.  They  are 
powerful,  not  only  to  delight,  but  to  elevate  and  purify.  Nor  do 
we  envy  the  man  who  can  study  either  the  life  or  the  writings 
of  the  great  poet  and  patriot,  without  aspiring  to  emulate,  not 
indeed  the  sublime  works  with  which  his  genius  has  enriched 
our  literature,  but  the  zeal  with  which  he  laboured  for  the 
public  good,  the  fortitude  with  which  he  endured  every  private 
calamity,  the  lofty  disdain  with  which  he  looked  down  on  temp- 
tations and  dangers,  the  deadly  hatred  which  he  bore  to  bigots 
and  tyrants,  and  the  faith  which  he  so  sternly  kept  with  his 
country  and  with  his  fame. 


HISTORY 

The^best  historians  of  later  times  have  been  seduced  from. 
truth,  not  by  their  imagination,  but  by  their  reason.   vQiev  faT 

jn  the  art  ot  deducing  general  princk 


pies  from  facts.  But  unhappily  they  have  fallen  into  the  error 
of  distorting  facts  to  suit  general  principles.  They  arQYf  ** 
a  theory  from  looking  at  some  of  the  phenomena  ;  and  the__ 
remaining  phenomena  they  strain  9f  fi\rtaiLie**tiaLjft\f  fl]EfTry  r 
For  this  purpose  it  is  not  necessary  that  they  should  assert 
what  is  absolutely  false  ;  for  all  questions  in  morals  and  politics 
are  questions  of  comparison  and  degree.  Any  proposition  which 
does  not  involve  a  contradiction  in  terms  may  by  possibility  be 
true  ;  and  if  all  the  circumstances  which  raise  a  probability  in 
its  favour  be  stated  and  enforced,  and  those  which  lead  to  an 
opposite  conclusion  be  omitted  or  lightly  passed  over,  it  may 
appear  to  be  demonstrated.  In  every  human  character  and 
transaction  there  is  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  :  a  little  exag- 
geration, a  little  suppression,  a  judicious  use  of  epithets,  a 
watchful  and  searching  scepticism  with  respect  to  the  evidence 
on  one  side,  a  convenient  credulity  with  respect  to  every  report 
or  tradition  on  the  other,  may  easily  make  a  saint  of  Laud,  or 
a  tyrant  of  Henry  the  Fourth. 

This  species  of  misrepresentation  abounds  in  the  most  valu- 
able works  of  modern  historians.  Herodotus  tells  his  story 
like  a  slovenly  witness,  who,  heated  by  partialities  and  preju- 
dices, unacquainted  with  the  established  rules  of  evidence,  and 
uninstructed  as  to  the  obligations  of  his  oath,  confounds  what 
he  imagines  with  what  he  has  seen  and  heard,  and  brings  out 
facts,  reports,  conjectures,  and  fancies,  in  one  mass.  Hume  is 
an  accomplished  advocate.  Without  positively  asserting  much 
more  than  he  can  prove,  he  gives  prominence  to  all  the  circum- 
stances which  support  his  case  ;  he  glides  lightly  over  those 

55 


56  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

which  are  unfavourable  to  it ;  his  own  witnesses  are  applauded 
and  encouraged  ;  the  statements  which  seem  to  throw  discredit 
on  them  are  controverted ;  the  contradictions  into  which  they 
fall  are  explained  away ;  a  clear  and  connected  abstract  of  their 
evidence  is  given.  Everything  that  is  offered  on  the  other  side 
is  scrutinised  with  the  utmost  severity ;  every  suspicious  circum- 
stance is  a  ground  for  comment  and  invective  ;  what  cannot 
be  denied  is  extenuated  or  passed  by  without  notice ;  conces- 
sions even  are  sometimes  made  :  but  this  insidious  candour 
only  increases  the  effect  of  the  vast  mass  of  sophistry. 

We  have  mentioned  Hume  as  the  ablest  and  most  popular 
writer  of  his  class  ;  but  the  charge  which  we  have  brought 
against  him  is  one  to  which  all  our  most  distinguished  histo- 
rians are  in  some  degree  obnoxious.  Gibbon,  in  particular, 
deserves  very  severe  censure.  Of  all  the  numerous  culprits, 
however,  none  is  more  deeply  guilty  than  Mr.  Mitford.  We 
willingly  acknowledge  the  obligations  which  ase  due  to  his 
talents  and  industry.  The  modern  historians  of  Greece  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  writing  as  if  the  world  had  learned  noth- 
ing new  during  the  last  sixteen  hundred  years.  Instead  of 
illustrating  the  events  which  they  narrated  by  the  philosophy 
of  a  more  enlightened  age,  they  judged  of  antiquity  by  itself 
alone.  They  seemed  to  think  that  notions,  Jong  driven  from 
every  other  corner  of  literature,  had  a  prescriptive  right  to 
occupy  this  last  fastness.  They  considered  all  the  ancient 
historians  as  equally  authentic.  They  scarcely  made  any  dis- 
tinction between  him  who  related  events  at  which  he  had 
himself  been  present,  and  him  who,  five  hundred  years  after, 
composed  a  philosophic  romance  for  a  society  which  had  in 
the  interval  undergone  a  complete  change.  It  was  all  Greek, 
and  all  true !  The  centuries  which  separated  Plutarch  from 
Thucydides  seemed  as  nothing  to  men  who  lived  in  an  age  so 
remote.  The  distance  of  time  produced  an  error  similar  to 
that  which  is  sometimes  produced  by  distance  of  place.  There 
are  many  good  ladies  who  think  that  all  the  people  in  India 
live  together,  and  who  charge  a  friend  setting  out  for  Calcutta 


HISTORY  57 

with  kind  messages  to  Bombay.  To  Rollin  and  Barthelemi,  in 
the  same  manner,  all  the  classics  were  contemporaries. 

Mr.  Mitford  certainly  introduced  great  improvements  ;  he 
showed  us  that  men  who  wrote  in  Greek  and  Latin  sometimes 
told  lies ;  he  showed  us  that  ancient  history  might  be  related 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  furnish  not  only  allusions  to  schoolboys, 
but  important  lessons  to  statesmen.  From  that  love  of  theat- 
rical effect  and  high-flown  sentiment  which  had  poisoned  almost 
every  other  work  on  the  same  subject  his  book  is  perfectly 
free.  But  his  passion  for  a  theory  as  false,  and  far  more  ungen- 
erous, led  him  substantially  to  violate  truth  in  every  page. 
Statements  unfavourable  to  democracy  are  made  with  unhesi- 
tating confidence,  and  with  the  utmost  bitterness  of  language. 
Every  charge  brought  against  a  monarch  or  an  aristocracy  is 
sifted  with  the  utmost  care.  If  it  cannot  be  denied,  some  pal- 
liating supposition  is  suggested ;  or  we  are  at  least  reminded 
that  some  circumstances  now  unknown  may  have  justified  what 
at  present  appears  unjustifiable.  Two  events  are  reported  by 
the  same  author  in  the  same  sentence ;  their  truth  rests  on 
the  same  testimony ;  but  the  one  supports  the  darling  hypoth- 
esis, and  the  other  seems  inconsistent  with  it.  The  one  is 
taken  and  the  other  is  left. 

The  practi^  ^f  Higfnrt-ingr  nnrratjv^jnfo  a  conformity  with 
theory  is  a  vice  not  so  unfavourable  as  at  first  signt  it  may 
appear  to  the  interests  of  political  science,  we  nave  compared 
the  writers  who  indulge  in  it  to  advocates  ;  and  we  may  add, 
that  their  conflicting  fallacies,  like  those  of  advocates,  correct 
each  other.  It  has  always  been  held,  in  the  most  enlightened 
nations,  that  a  tribunal  will  decide  a  judicial  question  most 
fairly  when  it  has  heard  two  able  men  argue,  as  unfairly  as 
possible,  on  the  two  opposite  sides  of  it ;  and  we  are  inclined  to 
think  that  this  opinion  is  just.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  superior 
eloquence  and  dexterity  will  make  the  worse  appear  the  better 
reason  ;  but  it  is  at  least  certain  that  the  judge  will  be  compelled 
to  contemplate  the  case  under  two  different  aspects.  It  is  certain 
that  no  important  consideration  will  altogether  escape  notice. 


58  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

This  is  at  present  the  state  of  history.  The  poet  laureate 
appears  for  the  Church  of  England,  Lingard  for  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Brodie  has  moved  to  set  aside  the  verdicts  obtained 
by  Hume ;  and  the  cause  in  which  Mitford  succeeded  is,  we 
understand,  about  to  be  reheard.  In  the  midst  of  these  dis- 
putes, however,  history  proper,  if  we  may  use  the  term,  is 
disappearing.  The  high,  grave,  impartial  summing  up  of 
Thucydides  is  nowhere  to  be  found. 

While  our  historians  ajf  practising  all  the  arts  of  contrp- 
v«sy,  they  miserably  neglect  the  art  qf  narration,  the  jirt  of 
interesting  the  affections  and  presenting  pictures  to  the  imagi- 
nation.  That  a  writer  may  produce  these  effects  without  violat- 
ing truth  is  sufficiently  proved  by  many  excellent  biographical 
works.  The  immense  popularity  which  well-written  books  of 
this  kind  have  acquired  deserves  the  serious  consideration  of 
historians.  Voltaire's  Charles  the  Twelfth,  Marmontel's  Mem- 
oirs, Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  Southey's  account  of  Nelson, 
are  perused  with  delight  by  the  most  frivolous  and  indolent. 
Whenever  any  tolerable  book  of  the  same  description  makes 
its  appearance  the  circulating  libraries  are  mobbed ;  the  book 
societies  are  in  commotion  ;  the  new  novel  lies  uncut ;  the  mag- 
azines and  newspapers  fill  their  columns  with  extracts.  In  the 
meantime  histories  of  great  empires,  written  by  men  of  eminent 
ability,  lie  unread  on  the  shelves  of  ostentatious  libraries. 
— The,  writers  of  history  seem  to  entertain  an  aristocratical 
^contempt  for  tne  writers  of  Tflgflinirs  They  think  it  beneath 
the  dignity  of  men  who  describe  the  revolutions  of  nations  to 
dwell  on  the  details  which  constitute  the  charm  of  biography. 
They  have  imposed  on  themselves  a  code  of  conventional 
decencies  as  absurd  as  that  which  has  been  the  bane  of  the 
French  drama.  The  most  characteristic  and  interesting  cir- 
cumstances are  omitted  or  softened  down,  because,  as  we  are 
told,  they  are  too  trivial  for  the  majesty  of  history.  The  maj- 
esty of  history  seems  to  resemble  the  majesty  of  the  poor 
King  of  Spain,  who  died  a  martyr  to  ceremony  because  the 
proper  dignitaries  were  not  at  hand  to  render  him  assistance. 


HISTORY  59 

That  history  would  be  more  amusing  if  this  etiquette  were 
relaxed,  will,  we  suppose,  be  acknowledged.  But  would  it  be 
less  dignified  or  less  useful  ?  What  do  we  mean  when  we  say 
that  one  past  event  is  important  and  another  insignificant? 
No  past  event  has  any  intrinsic  importance.  The  knowledge 
of  itis  valuflfrk*  nnV  88  It  1pa^-g  us  to  form,  just  calculations 
"with  Respect  to  the  future.  A  history  which  does  not  serve 
frulTpurpose,  though  it  may  be  filled  with  battles,  treaties,  and 
commotions,  is  as  useless  as  the  series  of  turnpike  tickets 
collected  by  Sir  Matthew  Mite. 

-  Let  us  suppose  that  Lord  Clarendon,  instead  of  filling  hun- 
dreds of  folio  pages  with  copies  of  state  papers,  in  which  the 
same  assertions  and  contradictions  are  repeated  till  the  reader 
is  overpowered  with  weariness,  had  condescended  to  be  the 
Boswell  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Let  us  suppose  that  he  had 
exhibited  to  us  the  wise  and  lofty  self-government  of  Hampden, 
leading  while  he  seemed  to  follow,  and  propounding  unanswer- 
able arguments  in  the  strongest  forms  with  the  modest  air  of 
an  inquirer  anxious  for  information  :  the  delusions  which  mis- 
led the  noble  spirit  of  Vane  ;  the  coarse  fanaticism  which  con- 
cealed the  yet  loftier  genius  of  Cromwell,  destined  to  control 
a  mutinous  army  and  a  factious  people,  to  abase  the  flag  of 
Holland,  to  arrest  the  victorious  arms  of  Sweden,  and  to  hold 
the  balance  firm  between  the  rival  monarchies  of  France  and 
Spain.  Let  us  suppose  that  he  had  made  his  Cavaliers  and 
Roundheads  talk  in  their  own  style ;  that  he  had  reported  some 
of  the  ribaldry  of  Rupert's  pages,  and  some  of  the  cant  of 
Harrison  and  Fleetwood.  Would  not  his  work  in  that  case  have 
been  more  interesting  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  more  accurate  ? 

JV  history  in  wVprh  pypry  particular  incident  may  be  Jrue^ 
may  on  {fop  wVujli  In  fnhr.^Tlir  circumstances  which  have 
most  influence  on  the  happiness  of  mankind,  the  changes  of 
manners  and  morals,  the  transition  of  communities  from  pov- 
erty to  wealth,  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  from  ferocity  to 
humanity  —  these  are,  for  the  most  part,  noiseless  revolutions. 
Their  progress  is  rarely  indicated  by  what  historians  are  pleased 


60  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  call  important  events.  They  are  not  achieved  by  armies,  or 
enacted  by  senates.  They  are  sanctioned  by  no  treaties,  and  re- 
corded in  no  archives.  They  are  carried  on  in  every  school, 
in  every  church,  behind  ten  thousand  counters,  at  ten  thousand 
firesides.  The  upper-current  of  society  presents  no  certain  cri- 
terion by  which  we  can  judge  of  the  direction  in  which  the 
under-current  flows.  We  read  of  defeats  and  victories.  But  we 
know  that  nations  may  be  miserable  amidst  victories  and  pros- 
perous amidst  defeats.  We  read  of  the  fall  of  wise  ministers 
and  of  the  rise  of  profligate  favourites.  But  we  must  remem- 
ber how  small  a  proportion  the  good  or  evil  effected  by  a  single 
statesman  can  bear  to  the  good  or  evil  of  a  great  social  system. 

Bishop  Watson  compares  a  geologist  to  a  gnat  mounted  on 
an  elephant  and  laying  down  theories  as  to  the  whole  inter- 
nal structure  of  the  vast  animal,  from  the  phenomena  of  the 
hide.  The  comparison  is  unjust  to  the  geologists ;  but  .  is 
very  applicable  to  those  historians  who  write  as  if  the  body 
politic  were  homogeneous,  who  look  only  on  the  surface  of 
affairs,  and  never  think  of  the  mighty  and  various  organization 
which  lies  deep  below. 

In  the  works  of  such  writers  as  these,  England,  at  the  close 
of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  is  in  the  highest  state  of  prosperity  :  at 
the  close  of  the  American  war  she  is  in  a  miserable  and  degraded 
condition  ;  as  if  the 'people  were  not  on  the  whole  as  rich,  as  well 
governed,  and  as  well  educated  at  the  latter  period  as  at  the 
former.  We  have  read  books  called  Histories  of  England,  under 
the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  in  which  the  rise  of  Methodism 
is  not  even  mentioned.  A  hundred  years  hence  this  breed  of 
authors  will,  we  hope,  be  extinct.  If  it  should  still  exist,  the 
late  ministerial  interregnum  will  be  described  in  terms  which 
will  seem  to  imply  that  all  government  was  at  an  end  ;  that 
the  social  contract  was  annulled ;  and  that  the  hand  of  every 
man  was  against  his  neighbour,  until  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of 
the  new  cabinet  educed  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  anarchy.  We 
are  quite  certain  that  misconceptions  as  gross  prevail  at  this 
moment  respecting  many  important  parts  of  our  annals. 


HISTORY  6l 

The  effect  of  historical  reading  is  analogous,  in  many  re^ 
spects,  to  that  produced  by  foreign  travel.  The  student,  like 
the  tourist,  is  transported  into  a  new  state  of  society.  He  sees 
new  fashions.  He  hears  new  modes  of  expression.  His  mind 
is  enlarged  by  contemplating  the  wide  diversities  of  laws,  of 
morals,  and  of  manners.  But  men  may  travel  far,  and  return 
with  minds  as  contracted  as  if  they  had  never  stirred  from 
their  own  market-town.  In  the  same  manner,  men  may  know 
the  dates  of  many  battles  and  the  genealogies  of  many  royal 
houses,  and  yet  be  no  wiser.  Most  people  look  at  past  times 
as  princes  look  at  foreign  countries.  More  than  one  illustrious 
stranger  has  landed  on  our  island  amidst  the  shouts  of  a  mob, 
has  dined  with  the  king,  has  hunted  with  the  master  of  the 
stag-hounds,  has  seen  the  guards  reviewed,  and  a  knight  of 
the  garter  installed ;  has  cantered  along  Regent  Street,  has 
visited  Saint  Paul's,  and  noted  down  its  dimensions  ;  and  has 
then  departed,  thinking  that  he  has  seen  England.  He  has, 
in  fact,  seen  a  few  public  buildings,  public  men,  and  public 
ceremonies^.  But  of  the  vast  and  complex  system  of  society, 
of  the  fine  shades  of  national  character,  of  the  practical  opera- 
tion of  government  and  laws,  he  knows  nothing,  He  who 
would  understand  these  things  rightly  must  not  confine  his 
observations  to  palaces  and  solemn  days.  He  must  see  ordi- 
nary men  as  they  appear  in  their  ordinary  business  and  in 
their  ordinary  pleasures.  He  must  mingle  in  the  crowds  of 
the  exchange  and  the  coffee-house.  He  must  obtain  admit- 
tance to  the  convivial  table  and  the  domestic  hearth.  He  must 
bear  with  vulgar  expressions.  He  must  not  shrink  from  ex- 
ploring even  the  retreats  of  misery.  He  who  wishes  to  under- 
stand the  condition  of  mankind  in  former  ages  must  proceed 
on  the  same  principle.  If  he  attends  only  to  public  transac- 
tions, to  wars,  congresses,  and  debates,  his  studies  will  be  as 
unprofitable  as  the  travels  of  those  imperial,  royal,  and  serene 
sovereigns  who  form  their  judgment  of  our  island  from  having 
gone  in  state  to  a  few  fine  sights,  and  from  having  held 
formal  conferences  with  a  few  great  officers. 


62  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

The  perfTt  hig^rian  ig  hf>  in  whose  wnrfc  tf]f  rharartpr 
spirit  of  an  age  is  exhibited  in  miniature.  He  relates  no  fact, 
he  attributes  no  expression  to  his  characters,  which  is  not  au- 
thenticated by  sufficient  testimony.  But,  by  judicious  selection, 
rejection,  and  arrangement,  he  gives  to  truth  those  attractions 
which  have  been  usurped  by  fiction.  In  his  narrative  a  due 
subordination  is  observed  :  some  transactions  are  prominent ; 
others  retire.  But  the  scale  on  which  he  represents  them  is 
increased  or  diminished,  not  according  to  the  dignity  of  the 
persons  concerned  in  them,  but  according  to  the  degree  in 
which  they  elucidate  the  condition  of  society  and  the  nature  of 
man.  He  shows  us  the  court,  the  camp,  and  the  senate.  But 
he  shows  us  also  the  nation.  He  considers  no  anecdote,  no 
peculiarity  of  manner,  no  familiar  saying,  as  too  insignificant 
for  his  notice  which  is  not  too  insignificant  to  illustrate  the 
operation  of  laws,  of  religion,  and  of  education,  and  to  mark 
the  progress  of  the  human  mind.  Men  will  not  merely  be  de- 
scribed, but  will  be  made  intimately  known  to  us.  The  changes 
of  manners  will  be  indicated,  not  merely  by  a  few  general 
phrases  or  a  few  Extracts  from  statistical  documents,  but  by 
appropriate  images  presented  in  every  line. 

If  a  man,  such  as  we  are  supposing,  should  write  the  history 
of  England,  he  would  assuredly  not  omit  the  battles,  the  sieges, 
the  negotiations,  the  seditions,  the  ministerial  changes.     But 
with  these  he  would  intersperse  the  details  which  are  the  charm 
of  historical  romances.    At  Lincoln  Cathedral  there  is  a  beauti-  *\ 
ful  painted  window,  which  was  made  by  an  apprentice  out  of 
the  pieces  of  glass  which  had  been  rejected  by  his  master.    It     / 
is  so  far  superior  to  every  other  in  the  church  that,  according 
to  the  tradition,  the  vanquished  artist  killed  himself  from  morti-  J 
fication.    Sir  Waltej^Scott,  in  the  same  manner,  has  used  those 
fragments  oT truth  which  historians  have  scornfully  thrown  be- 
hind them  in  a  manner  which  may  well  excite  their  envy.    He 
has  constructed  out  of  their  gleanings  works  which,  even  con- 
sidered as  histories,  are  scarcely  less  valuable  than  theirs.   But  a 
truly  great  historian  would  reclaim  those  materials  which  the 


HISTORY  63 

novelist  has  appropriated.  The  history  of  the  government,  and 
the  history  of  the  people,  would  be  exhibited  in  that  mode  in 
which  alone  they  can  be  exhibited  justly,  in  inseparable  con- 
junction and  intermixture.  We  should  not  then  have  to  look 
for  the  wars  and  votes  of  the  Puritans  in  Clarendon,  and  for 
their  phraseology  in  Old  Mortality;  for  one  half  of  King  James 
in  Hume,  and  for  the  other  half  in  the  Fortunes  of  Nigel. 

The  early  part  of  our  imaginary  history  would  be  rich  with 
colouring  from  romance,  ballad,  and  chronicle.  We  should  find 
ourselves  in  the  company  of  knights  such  as  those  of  Froissart, 
and  of  pilgrims  such  as  those  who  rode  with  Chaucer  from  the 
Tabard.  Society  would  be  shown  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest 
—from  the  royal  cloth  of  state  to  the  den  of  the  outlaw;  from 
the  throne  of  the  legate  to  the  chimney-corner  where  the  beg- 
ging friar  regaled  himself.  Palmers,  minstrels,  crusaders  —  the 
stately  monastery,  with  the  good  cheer  in  its  refectory  and  the 
high-mass  in  its  chapel  —  the  manor-house,  with  its  hunting 
and  hawking  —  the  tournament,  with  the  heralds  and  ladies, 
the  trumpets  and  the  cloth  of  gold  —  would  give  truth  and  life 
to  the  representation.  We  should  perceive,  in  a  thousand  slight 
touches,  the  importance  of  the  privileged  burgher,  and  the  fierce 
and  haughty  spirit  which  swelled  under  the  collar  of  the  de- 
graded villain.  The  revival  of  letters  would  not  merely  be  de- 
scribed in  a  few  magnificent  periods.  We  should  discern,  in 
innumerable  particulars,  the  fermentation  of  mind,  the  eager 
appetite  for  knowledge,  which  distinguished  the  sixteenth  from 
the  fifteenth  century.  In  the  Reformation  we  should  see,  not 
merely  a  schism  which  changed  the  ecclesiastical  constitution  of 
England  and  the  mutual  relations  of  the  European  powers,  but 
a  moral  war  which  raged  in  every  family,  which  set  the  father 
against  the  son  and  the  son  against  the  father,  the  mother 
against  the  daughter  and  the  daughter  against  the  mother. 
Henry  would  be  painted  with  the  skill  of  Tacitus.  We  should 
have  the  change  of  his  character  from  his  profuse  and  joyous 
youth  to  his  savage  and  imperious  old  age.  We  should  perceive 
the  gradual  progress  of  selfish  and  tyrannical  passions  in  a 


64  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

mind  not  naturally  insensible  or  ungenerous ;  and  to  the  last 
we  should  detect  some  remains  of  that  open  and  noble  temper 
which  endeared  him  to  a  people  whom  he  oppressed,  struggling 
with  the  hardness  of  despotism  and  the  irritability  of  disease. 
We  should  see  Elizabeth  in  all  her 'weakness  and  in  all  her 
strength,  surrounded  by  the  handsome  favourites  whom  she 
never  trusted,  and  the  wise  old  statesmen  whom  she  never 
dismissed,  uniting  in  herself  the  most  contradictory  qualities 
of  both  her  parents  —  the  coquetry,  the  caprice,  the  petty 
malice  of  Anne  —  the  haughty  and  resolute  spirit  of  Henry. 
We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  a  great  artist  might  pro- 
duce a  portrait  of  this  remarkable  woman  at  least  as  striking 
as  that  in  the  novel  of  Kenilworth,  without  employing  a  single 
trait  not  authenticated  by  ample  testimony.  In  the  meantime, 
we  should  see  arts  cultivated,  wealth  accumulated,  the  conven- 
iences of  life  improved.  We  should  see  the  keeps,  where 
nobles,  insecure  themselves,  spread  insecurity  around  them, 
gradually  giving  place  to  the  halls  of  peaceful  opulence,  to  the 
oriels  of  Longleat,  and  the  stately  pinnacles  of  Burleigh.  We 
should  see  towns  extended,  deserts  cultivated,  the  hamlets  of 
fishermen  turned  into  wealthy  havens,  the  meal  of  the  peasant 
improved,  and  his  hut  more  commodiously  furnished.  We 
should  see  those  opinions  and  feelings  which  produced  the 
great  struggle  against  the  House  of  Stuart  slowly  growing  up 
in  the  bosom  of  private  families,  before  they  manifested  them- 
selves in  parliamentary  debates.  Then  would  come  the  civil 
war.  Those  skirmishes  on  which  Clarendon  dwells  so  minutely 
would  be  told,  as  Thucydides  would  have  told  them,  with  per- 
spicuous conciseness.  They  are  merely  connecting  links.  But 
the  great  characteristics  of  the  age,  the  loyal  enthusiasm  of  the 
brave  English  gentry,  the  fierce  licentiousness  of  the  swearing, 
dicing,  drunken  reprobates,  whose  excesses  disgraced  the  royal 
cause  —  the  austerity  of  the  Presbyterian  Sabbaths  in  the  city, 
the  extravagance  of  the  independent  preachers  in  the  camp, 
the  precise  garb,  the  severe  countenance,  the  petty  scruples,  the 
affected  accent,  the  absurd  names  and  phrases  which  marked 


HISTORY  65 

the  Puritans  —  the  valour,  the  policy,  the  public  spirit,  which 
lurked  beneath  these  ungraceful  disguises  —  the  dreams  of  the 
raving  Fifth-monajchy-man,  the  dreams,  scarcely  less  wild,  of 
the  philosophic  Republican — all  these  would  enter  into  the  rep- 
resentation, and  render  it  at  once  more  exact  and  more  striking. 

T|^>  inKtrnrtjon  derived  from  history  thus  written  would  be 
of  a  viviH  ^n<^  ptnrf;^  ^flrflcfcr,  It  would  be  received  by  the 
imagination  as  well  as  bv  the  reason.  It  would  be  not  merely 
traced  on  the  mind,  but  branded  into  it.  Many  truths,  too, 
would  be  learned,  which  can  be  learned  in  no  other  manner. 
As  the  history  of  states  is  generally  written,  the  greatest  and 
most  momentous  revolutions  seem  to  come  upon  them  like 
supernatural  inflictions,  without  warning  or  cause.  But  the  fact 
is,  that  such  revolutions  are  almost  always  the  consequences  of 
moral  changes,  which  have  gradually  passed  on  the  mass  of  the 
community,  and  which  originally  proceed  far  before  their  prog- 
ress is  indicated  by  any  public  measure.  An  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  domestic  history  of  nations  is  therefore  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  prognosis  of  political  events.  A  narrative 
defective  in  this  respect  is  as  useless  as  a  medical  treatise 
which  should  pass  by  all  the  symptoms  attendant  on  the  early 
stage  of  a  disease,  and  mention  only  what  occurs  when  the 
patient  is  beyond  the  reach  of  remedies. 

A  historian,  such  as  we  have  been  attempting  to  describe, 
would  indeed  be  an  intellectual  prodigy.  In  his  mind  powers 
scarcely  compatible  with  each  other  must  be  tempered  into  an 
exquisite  harmony.  We  shall  sooner  see  another  Shakspeare 
or  another  Homer.  The  highest  excellence  to  which  any  single 
faculty  can  be  brought  would  be  less  surprising  than  such  a 
happy  and  delicate  combination  of  qualities.  Yet  the  contem- 
plation of  imaginary  models  is  not  an  unpleasant  or  useless 
employment  of  the  mind.  It  cannot,  indeed,  produce  perfec- 
tion ;  but  it  produces  improvement  and  nourishes  that  generous 
and  liberal  fastidiousness  which  is  not  inconsistent  with  the 
strongest  sensibility  to  merit,  and  which,  while  it  exalts  our 
conceptions  of  the  art,  does  not  render  us  unjust  to  the  artist. 


BYRON 

It  is  always  difficult  to  separate  the  literary  character  of  a 
man  who  lives  in  our  own  time  from  his  personal  character. 
It  is  peculiarly  difficult  to  make  this  separation  in  the  case  of 
Lord  Byron ;  for  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  Lord 
Byron  never  wrote  without  some  reference,  direct  or  indirect, 
to  himself.  The  interest  excited  by  the  events  of  his  life 
mingles  itself  in  our  minds,  and  probably  in  the  minds  of 
almost  all  our  readers,  with  the  interest  which  properly  'belongs 
to  his  works.  A  generation  must  pass  away  before  it  will  be 
possible  to  form  a  fair  judgment  of  his  books,  considered 
merely  as  books.  At  present  they  are  not  only  books,  but 
relics.  We  will,  however,  venture,  though  with  unfeigned 
diffidence,  to  offer  some  desultory  remarks  on  his  poetry. 

His  lot  was  cast  in  the  time  of  a  great  literary  revolution. 
That  p9etical  dynasty  which  had  dethroned  the  successors  of 
Shakspeare  and  Spenser  was,  in  its  turn,  dethroned  by  a 
race  who  represented  themselves  as  heirs  of  the  ancient  line, 
so  long  dispossessed  by  usurpers.  The  real  nature  of  this 
revolution  has  not,  we  think,  been  comprehended  by  the  great 
majority  of  those  who  concurred  in  it. 

Wherein  especially  does  the  poetry  of  our  times  differ  from 
that  of  the  last  century  ?  Ninety-nine  persons  out  of  a  hun- 
dred would  answer  that  the  poetry  of  the  last  century  was 
correct,  but  cold  and  mechanical,  and  that  the  poetry  of  our 
time,  though  wild  and  irregular,  presented  far  more  vivid 
images,  and  excited  the  passions  far  more  strongly  than  that 
of  Parnell,  of  Addison,  or  of  Pope.  In  the  same  manner  we 
constantly  hear  it  said  that  the  poets  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth 
had  far  more  genius,  but  far  less  correctness,  than  those  of 
the  age  of  Anne.  It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  there 
is  some  incompatibility,  some  antithesis  between  correctness 

66 


BYRON  67 

and  creative  power.  We  rather  suspect  that  this  notion  arises 
merely  from  an  abuse  of  words,  and  that  it  has  been  the 
parent  of  many  of  the  fallacies  which  perplex  the  science 
of  criticism. 

What  is  meant  by  correctness  in  poetry  ?  If  by  correctness 
be  meant  the  conforming  to  rules  which  have  their  foundation 
in  truth  and  in  the  principles  of  human  nature,  then  correct- 
ness is  only  another  name  for  excellence.  If  by  correctness 
be  meant  the  conforming  to  rules  purely  arbitrary,  correctness 
may  be  another  name  for  dulness  and  absurdity. 

A  writer  who  describes  visible  objects  falsely  and  violates 
the  propriety  of  character,  a  writer  who  makes  the  mountains 
"nod  their  drowsy  heads "  at  night,  or  a  dying  man  take 
leave  of  the  world  with  a  rant  like  that  of  Maximin,  may  be 
said,  in  the  high  and  just  sense  of  the  phrase,  to  write  incor- 
rectly. He  violates  the  first  great  law  of  his  art.  His  imitation 
is  altogether  unlike  the  thing  imitated.  The  four  poets  who 
are  most  eminently  free  from  incorrectness  of  this  description 
are  Homer,  Dante,  Shakspeare,  and  Milton.  They  are,  there- 
fore, in  one  sense,  and  that  the  best  sense,  the  most  correct 
of  poets. 

When  it  is  said  that  Virgil,  though  he  had  less  genius  than 
Homer,  was  a  more  correct  writer,  what  sense  is  attached  to 
the  word  correctness  ?  Is  it  meant  that  the  story  of  the 
sEneid  is  developed  more  skilfully  than  that  of  the  Odyssey  ? 
that  the  Roman  describes  the  face  of  the  external  world,  or  the 
emotions  of  the  mind,  more  accurately  than  the  Greek  ?  that 
the  characters  of  Achates  and  Mnestheus  are  more  nicely 
discriminated,  and  more  consistently  supported,  than  those  of 
Achilles,  of  Nestor,  and  of  Ulysses  ?  The  fact  incontestably 
is  that,  for  every  violation  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  poetry 
which  can  be  found  in  Homer,  it  would  be  easy  to  find 
twenty  in  Virgil. 

Troilus  and  Cressida  is  perhaps  of  all  the  plays  of 
Shakspeare  that  which  is  commonly  considered  as  the  most 
incorrect.  Yet  it  seems  to  us  infinitely  more  correct,  in  the 


68  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

sound  sense  of  the  term,  than  what  are  called  the  most  correct 
plays  of  the  most  correct  dramatists.  Compare  it,  for  example, 
with  the  Iphige'nie  of  Racine.  We  are  sure  that  the  Greeks 
of  Shakspeare  bear  a  far  greater  resemblance  than  the  Greeks 
of  Racine  to  the  real  Greeks  who  besieged  Troy ;  and  for 
this  reason,  that  the  Greeks  of  Shakspeare  are  human  beings, 
and  the  Greeks  of  Racine  mere  names,  mere  words  printed 
in  capitals  at  the  head  of  paragraphs  of  declamation.  Racine, 
it  is  true,  would  have  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  making 
a  warrior  at  the  siege  of  Troy  quote  Aristotle.  But  of  what 
use  is  it  to  avoid  a  single  anachronism,  when  the  whole  play 
is  one  anachronism,  .the  sentiments  and  phrases  of  Versailles 
in  the  camp  of  Aulis  ? 

In  the  sense  in  which  we  are  now  using  the  word  correct- 
ness, we  think  that  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
Mr.  Coleridge,  are  far  more  correct  poets  than  those  who  are 
commonly  extolled  as  the  models  of  correctness  —  Pope,  for 
example,  and  Addison.  The  single  description  of  a  moonlight 
night  in  Pope's  Iliad  contains  more  inaccuracies  than  can  be 
found  in  all  the  Excursion.  There  is  not  a  single  scene  in 
Cato,  in  which  all  that  conduces  to  poetical  illusion,  all  the 
propriety  of  character,  of  language,  of  situation,  is  not  more 
grossly  violated  than  in  any  part  of  the  Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel.  No  man  can  possibly  think  that  the  Romans  of 
Addison  resemble  the  real  Romans  so  closely  as  the  moss- 
troopers of  Scott  resemble  the  real  moss-troopers.  Wat 
Tinlinn  and  William  of  Deloraine  are  not,  it  is  true,  persons 
of  so  much  dignity  as  Cato.  But  the  dignity  of  the  persons 
represented  has  as  little  to  do  with  the  correctness  of  poetry 
as  with  the  correctness  of  painting.  We  prefer  a  gipsy  by 
Reynolds  to  his  Majesty's  head  on  a  sign-post,  and  a  Borderer 
by  Scott  to  a  Senator  by  Addison. 

In  what  sense,  then,  is  the  word  correctness  used  by  those 
who'  say,  with  the  author  of  the  Pursiiits  of  Literature,  that 
Pope  was  the  most  correct  of  English  Poets,  and  that  next  to 
Pope  came  the  late  Mr. '  Gifford  ?  What  is  the  nature  and 


BYRON  69 

value  of  that  correctness,  the  praise  of  which  is  denied  to 
Macbeth,  to  Lear,  and  to  Othello,  and  given  to  Hoole's  trans- 
lations and  to  all  the  Seatonian  prize-poems  ?  We  can  dis- 
cover no  eternal  rule,  no  rule  founded  in  reason  and  in  the 
nature  of  things,  which  Shakspeare  does  not  observe  much 
more  strictly  than  Pope.  But  if  by  correctness  be  meant  the 
conforming  to  a  narrow  legislation  which,  while  lenient  to  the 
mala  in  se,  multiplies,  without  a  shadow  of  a  reason,  the  mala 
prohibita  —  if  by  correctness  be  meant  a  strict  attention  to 
certain  ceremonious  observances,  which  are  no  more  essential 
to  poetry  than  etiquette  to  good  government,  or  than  the 
washings  of  a  Pharisee  to  devotion  —  then,  assuredly,  Pope  may 
be  a  more  correct  poet  than  Shakspeare ;  and,  if  the  code 
were  a  little  altered,  Colley  Gibber  might  be  a  fnore  correct 
poet  than  Pope.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  this 
kind  of  correctness  be  a  merit,  nay,  whether  it  be  not  an 
absolute  fault. 

It  would  be  amusing  to  make  a  digest  of  the  irrational  laws 
which  bad  critics  have  framed  for  the  government  of  poets. 
First  in  celebrity  and  in  absurdity  stand  the  dramatic  unities  of 
place  and  time.  No  human  being  has  ever  been  able  to  find 
anything  that  could,  even  by  courtesy,  be  called  an  argument 
for  these  unities,  except  that  they  have  been  deduced  from  the 
general  practice  of  the  Greeks.  It  requires  no  very  profound 
examination  to  discover  that  the  Greek  dramas,  often  admirable 
as  compositions,  are,  as  exhibitions  of  human  character  and 
human  life,  far  inferior  to  the  English  plays  of  the  age  of 
Elizabeth.  Every  scholar  knows  that  the  dramatic  part  of  the 
Athenian  tragedies  was  at  first  subordinate  to  the  lyrical  part. 
It  would,  therefore,  have  been  little  less  than  a  miracle  if  the 
laws  of  the  Athenian  stage  had  been  found  to  suit  plays  in 
which  there  was  no  chorus.  All  the  greatest  masterpieces  of 
the  dramatic  art  have  been  composed  in  direct  violation  of  the 
unities,  and  could  never  have  been  composed  if  the  unities  had 
not  been  violated.  It  is  clear,  for  example,  that  such  a  character 
as  that  of  Hamlet  could  never  have  been  developed  within  the 


70  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

limits  to  which  Alfieri  confined  himself.  Yet  such  was  the 
reverence  of  literary  men  during  the  last  century  for  these 
unities  that  Johnson,  who,  much  to  his  honour,  took  the  oppo- 
site side,  was,  as  he  says  "frightened  at  his  own  temerity," 
and  "  afraid  to  stand  against  the  authorities  which  might  be 
produced  against  him." 

There  are  other  rules  of  the  same  kind  without  end. 
"  Shakspeare,"  says  Rymer,  "  ought  not  to  have  made  Othello 
black ;  for  the  hero  of  a  tragedy  ought  always  to  be  white." 
"  Milton,"  says  another  critic,  "  ought  not  to  have  taken  Adam 
for  his  hero ;  for  the  hero  of  an  epic  poem  ought  always  to  be 
victorious."  "  Milton,"  says  another,  "  ought  not  to  have  put 
so  many  similes  into  his  first  book ;  for  the  first  book  of  an 
epic  poem  ought  always  to  be  the  most  unadorned.  There  are 
no  similes  in  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad''  "  Milton,"  says 
another,  "  ought  not  to  have  placed  in  an  epic  poem  such  lines 
as  these  : 

While  thus  I  called,  and  strayed  I  knew  not  whither." 

And  why  not  ?  The  critic  is  ready  with  a  reason,  a  lady's 
reason.  "  Such  lines,"*says  he,  "  are  not,  it  must  be  allowed, 
unpleasing  to  the  ear ;  but  the  redundant  syllable  ought  to  be 
confined  to  the  drama,  and  not  admitted  into  epic  poetry." 
As  to  the  redundant  syllable  in  heroic  rhyme  on  serious  sub- 
jects, it  has  been,  from  the  time  of  Pope  downward,  proscribed 
by  the  general  consent  of  all  the  correct  school.  No  magazine 
would  have  admitted  so  incorrect  a  couplet  as  that  of  Drayton  : 

As  when  we  lived  untouch'd  with  these  disgraces, 
When  as  our  kingdom  was  our  dear  embraces. 

Another  law  of  heroic  rhyme,  which  fifty  years  ago  was  con- 
sidered as  fundamental,  was  that  there  should  be  a  pause,  a 
comma  at  least,  at  the  end  of  every  couplet.  It  was  also 
provided  that  there  should  never  be  a  full  stop  except  at  the 
end  of  a  line.  Well  do  we  remember  to  have  heard  a  most 
correct  judge  of  poetry  revile  Mr.  Rogers  for  the  incorrectness 
of  that  most  sweet  and  graceful  passage  : 


BYRON  71 

Such  grief  was  ours  —  it  seems  but  yesterday  — 
When  in  thy  prime,  wishing  so  much  to  stay, 
'T  was  thine,  Maria,  thine  without  a  sigh 
At  midnight  in  a  sister's  arms  to  die. 
Oh  thou  wert  lovely ;  lovely  was  thy  frame, 
And  pure  thy  spirit  as  from  heaven  it  came : 
And  when  recalled  to  join  the  blest  above 
Thou  diedst  a  victim  to  exceeding  love, 
Nursing  the  young  to  health.    In  happier  hours, 
When  idle  Fancy  wove  luxuriant  flowers, 
Once  in  thy  mirth  thou  badst  me  write  on  thee ; 
And  now  I  write  what  thou  shalt  never  see. 

Sir  Roger  Newdigate  is  fairly  entitled,  we  think,  to  be  ranked 
among  the  great  critics  of  this  school.  He  made  a  law  that 
none  of  the  poems  written  for  the  prize  which  he  established 
at  Oxford  should  exceed  fifty  lines.  This  law  seems  to  us  to 
have  at  least  as  much  foundation  in  reason  as  any  of  those 
which  we  have  mentioned ;  nay,  much  more,  for  the  world,  we 
believe,  is  pretty  well  agreed  in  thinking  that  the  shorter  a 
prize-poem  is,  the  better. 

We  do  not  see  why  we  should  not  make  a  few  more  rules  of 
the  same  kind ;  why  we  should  not  enact  that  the  number  of 
scenes  in  every  act  shall  be  three  or  some  multiple  of  three, 
that  the  number  of  lines  in  every  scene  shall  be  an  exact 
square,  that  the  dramatis  persona  shall  never  be  more  or  fewer 
than  sixteen,  and  that,  in  heroic  rhymes,  every  thirty-sixth  line 
shall  have  twelve  syllables.  If  we  were  to  lay  down  these 
canons,  and  to  call  Pope,  Goldsmith,  and  Addison  incorrect 
writers  for  not  having  complied  with  our  whims,  we  should  act 
precisely  as  those  critics  act  who  find  incorrectness  in  the 
magnificent  imagery  and  the  varied  music  of  Coleridge  and 
Shelley. 

The  correctness  which  the  last  century  prized  so  much 
resembles  the  correctness  of  those  pictures  of  the  garden  of 
Eden  which  we  see  in  old  Bibles.  We  have  an  exact  square 
enclosed  by  the  rivers  Pison,  Gihon,  Hiddekel,  and  Euphrates, 
each  with  a  convenient  bridge  in  the  centre,  rectangular  beds 


72  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  flowers,  a  long  canal,  neatly  bricked  and  railed  in,  the  tree 
of  knowledge  clipped  like  one  of  the  limes  behind  the  Tuilleries, 
standing  in  the  centre  of  the  grand  alley,  the  snake  twined 
round  it,  the  man  on  the  right  hand,  the  woman  on  the  left, 
and  the  beasts  drawn  up  in  an  exact  circle  round  them.  In 
one  sense  the  picture  is  correct  enough.  That  is  to  say,  the 
squares  are  correct ;  the  circles  are  correct ;  the  man  and  the 
woman  are  in  a  most  correct  line  with  the  tree ;  and  the  snake 
forms  a  most  correct  spiral. 

But  if  there  were  a  painter  so  gifted  that  he  could  place  on 
the  canvas  that  glorious  paradise  seen  by  the  interior  eye  of 
him  whose  outward  sight  had  failed  with  long  watching  and 
labouring  for  liberty  and  truth  —  if  there  were  a  painter  who 
could  set  before  us  the  mazes  of  the  sapphire  brook,  the  lake 
with  its  fringe  of  myrtles,  the  flowery  meadows,  the  grottoes 
overhung  by  vines,  the  forests  shining  with  Hesperian  fruit 
and  with  the  plumage  of  gorgeous  birds,  the  massy  shade  of 
that  nuptial  bower  which  showered  down  roses  on  the  sleeping 
lovers  —  what  should  we  think  of  a  connoisseur,  who  should  tell 
us  that  this  painting,  though  finer  than  the  absurd  picture  in 
the  old  Bible,  was  not  so  correct  ?  Surely  we  should  answer, 
It  is  both  finer  and  more  correct ;  and  it  is  finer  because  it  is 
more  correct.  It  is  not  made  up  of  correctly  drawn  diagrams  ; 
but  it  is  a  correct  painting,  a  worthy  representation  of  that 
which  it  is  intended  to  represent. 

It  is  not  in  the  fine  arts  alone  that  this  false  correctness  is 
prized  by  narrow-minded  men  —  by  men  who  cannot  distinguish 
means  from  ends,  or  what  is  accidental  from  what  is  essential. 
M.  Jourdain  admired  correctness  in  fencing.  "You  had  no 
business  to  hit  me  then.  You  must  never  thrust  in  quart  till 
you  have  thrust  in  tierce."  M.  Tomes  liked  correctness  in 
medical  practice.  "  I  stand  up  for  Artemius.  That  he  killed 
his  patient  is  plain  enough.  But  still  he  acted  quite  according 
to  rule.  A  man  dead  is  a  man  dead,  and  there  is  an  end  of 
the  matter.  But  if  rules  are  to  be  broken,  there  is  no  saying 
what  consequences  may  follow."  We  have  heard  of  an  old 


BYRON  73 

German  officer  who  was  a  great  admirer  of  correctness  in 
military  operations.  He  used  to  revile  Bonaparte  for  spoiling 
the  science  of  war,  which  had  been  carried  to  such  exquisite 
perfection  by  Marshal  Daun.  "In  my  youth  we  used  to  march 
and  countermarch  all  the  summer  without  gaining  or  losing  a 
square  league,  and  then  we  went  into  winter-quarters.  And 
now  comes  an  ignorant,  hot-headed  young  man,  who  flies 
about  from  Boulogne  to  Ulm,  and  from  Ulm  to  the  middle  of 
Moravia,  and  fights  battles  in  December.  The  whole  system 
of  his  tactics  is  monstrously  incorrect."  The  world  is  of 
opinion,  in  spite  of  critics  like  these,  that  the  end  of  fencing 
is  to  hit,  that  the  end  of  medicine  is  to  cure,  that  the  end  of 
war  is  to  cpnquer,  and  that  those  means  are  the  most  correct 
which  best  accomplish  the  ends. 

And  has  poetry  no  end,  no  eternal  and  immutable  prin- 
ciples ?  Is  poetry,  like  heraldry,  mere  matter  of  arbitrary 
regulation  ?  The  heralds  tell  us  that  certain  scutcheons-  and 
bearings  denote  certain  conditions,  and  that  to  put  colours  on 
colours,  or  metals  on  metals,  is  false  blazonry.  If  all  this  were 
reversed,  if  every  coat  of  arms  in  Europe  were  new-fashioned, 
if  it  were  decreed  that  or  should  never  be  placed  but  on  argent, 
or  argent  but  oh  or,  that  illegitimacy  should  be  denoted  by  a 
lozenge,  and  widowhood  by  a  bend,  the  new  science  would  be 
just  as  good  as  the  old  science,  because  both  the  new  and  the 
old  would  be  good  for  nothing.  The  mummery  of  Portcullis 
and  Rouge  Dragon,  as  it  has  no  other  value  than  that  which 
caprice  has  assigned  to  it,  may  well  submit  to  any  laws 
which  caprice  may  impose  on  it.  But  it  is  not  so  with  that 
great  imitative  art,  to  the  power  of  which  all  ages,  the  rudest 
and  the  most  enlightened,  bear  witness.  Since  its  first  great 
masterpieces  were  produced,  everything  that  is  changeable  in 
this  world  has  been  changed.  Civilisation  has  been  gained, 
lost,  gained  again.  Religions,  and  languages,  and  forms  of 
government,  and  usages  of  private  life,  and  modes  of  thinking, 
all  have  undergone  a  succession  of  revolutions.  Everything 
has  passed  away  but  the  great  features  of  nature,  and  the 


74  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

heart  of  man,  and  the  miracles  of  that  art  of  which  it  is  the 
office  to  reflect  back  the  heart  of  man  and  the  features  of 
nature.  Those  two  strange  old  poems,  the  wonder  of  ninety 
generations,  still  retain  all  their  freshness.  They  still  command 
the  veneration  of  minds  enriched  by  the  literature  of  many 
nations  and  ages.  They  are  still,  even  in  wretched  translations, 
the  delight  of  school-boys.  Having  survived  ten  thousand 
capricious  fashions,  having  seen  successive  codes  of  criticism 
become  obsolete,  they  still  remain  to  us,  immortal  with  the 
immortality  of  truth,  the  same  when  perused  in  the  study  of 
an  English  scholar,  as  when  they  were  first  chanted  at  the 
banquets  of  the  Ionian  princes. 

Poetry  is,  as  was  said  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago, 
imitation.  It  is  an  art  analogous  in  many  respects  to  the  art 
of  painting,  sculpture,  and  acting.  The  imitations  of  the 
painter,  the  sculptor,  and  the  actor  are,  indeed,  within  certain 
limits,  more  perfect  than  those  of  the  poet.  The  machinery 
which  the  poet  employs  consists  merely  of  words ;  and  words 
cannot,  even  when  employed  by  such  an  artist  as  Homer  or 
Dante,  present  to  the  mind  images  of  visible  objects  quite  so 
lively  and  exact  as  those  which  we  carry  away  from  looking  on 
the  works  of  the  brush  and  the  chisel.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  range  of  poetry  is  infinitely  wider  than  that  of  any  other 
imitative  art,  or  than  that  of  all  the  other  imitative  arts  together. 
The  sculptor  can  imitate  only  form  ;  the  painter  only  form  and 
colour ;  the  actor,  until  the  poet  supplies  him  with  words,  only 
form,  colour,  and  motion.  Poetry  holds  the  outer  world  in 
common  with  the  other  arts.  The  heart  of  man  is  the  province 
of  poetry,  and  of  poetry  alone.  The  painter,  the  sculptor,  and 
the  actor  can  exhibit  no  more  of  human  passion  and  character 
than  that  small  portion  which  overflows  into  the  gesture  and 
the  face,  always  an  imperfect,  often  a  deceitful,  sign  of  that 
which  is  within.  The  deeper  and  more  complex  parts  of 
human  nature  can  be  exhibited  by  means  of  words  alone. 
Thus  the  objects  of  the  imitation  of  poetry  are  the  whole 
external  and  the  whole  internal  universe,  the  face  of  nature, 


BYRON  75 

the  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  man  as  he  is  in  himself,  man  as  he 
appears  in  society,  all  things  which  really  exist,  all  things  of 
which  we  can  form  an  image  in  our  minds  by  combining 
together  parts  of  things  which  really  exist.  The  domain  of 
this  imperial  art  is  commensurate  with  the  imaginative  faculty. 

An  art  essentially  imitative  ought  not  surely  to  be  subjected 
to  rules  which  tend  to  make  its  imitations  less  perfect  than  they 
otherwise  would  be  ;  and  those  who  obey  such  rules  ought  to 
be  called,  not  correct,  but  incorrect  artists.  The  true  way  to 
judge  of  the  rules  by  which  English  poetry  was  governed  during 
the  last  century  is  to  look  at  the  effects  which  they  produced. 

It  was  in  1780  that  Johnson  completed  his  Lives  of  the  Poets. 
He  tells  us  in  that  work  that,  since  the  time  of  Dry  den,  English 
poetry  had  shown  no  tendency  to  relapse  into  its  original 
savageness,  that  its  language  had  been  refined,  its  numbers 
tuned,  and  its  sentiments  improved.  It  may  perhaps  be  doubted 
whether  the  nation  had  any  great  reason  to  exult  in  the  refine- 
ments and  improvements  which  gave  it  Douglas  for  Othello, 
and  the  Triumphs  of  Temper  for  the  Fairy  Queen. 

It  was  during  the  thirty  years  which  preceded  the  appearance 
of  Johnson's  Lives  that  the  diction  and  versification  of  English 
poetry  were,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  commonly 
used,  most  correct.  Those  thirty  years  are,  as  respects  poetry, 
the  most  deplorable  part  of  our  literary  history.  They  have 
indeed  bequeathed  to  us  scarcely  any  poetry  which  deserves  to 
be  remembered.  Two  or  three  hundred  lines  of  Gray,  twice  as 
many  of  Goldsmith,  a  few  stanzas  of  Beattie  and  Collins,  a  few 
strophes  of  Mason,  and  a  few  clever  prologues  and  satires,  were 
the  masterpieces  of  this  age  of  consummate  excellence.  They 
may  all  be  printed  in  one  volume,  and  that  volume  would  be 
by  no  means  a  volume  of  extraordinary  merit.  It  would  contain 
no  poetry  of  the  very  highest  class,  and  little  which  could  be 
placed  very  high  in  the  second  class.  The  Paradise  Regained 
or  Comus  would  outweigh  it  all. 

At  last,  when  poetry  had  fallen  into  such  utter  decay  that 
Mr.  Hayley  was  thought  a  great  poet,  it  began  to  appear  that 


76  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  excess  of  the  evil  was  about  to  work  the  cure.  Men 
became  tired  of  an  insipid  conformity  to  a  standard  which 
derived  no  authority  from  nature  or  reason.  A  shallow  criticism 
had  taught  them  to  ascribe  a  superstitious  value  to  the  spurious 
correctness  of  poetasters.  A  deeper  criticism  brought  them 
back  to  the  true  correctness  of  the  first  great  masters.  The 
eternal  laws  of  poetry  regained  their  power,  and  the  temporary 
fashions  which  had  superseded  those  laws  went  after  the  wig 
of  Lovelace  and  the  hoop  of  Clarissa. 

It  was  in  a  cold  and  barren  season  that  the  seeds  of  that  rich 
harvest  which  we  have  reaped  were  first  sown.  While  poetry 
was  every  year  becoming  more  feeble  and  more  mechanical ; 
while  the  monotonous  versification  which  Pope  had  introduced, 
no  longer  redeemed  by  his  brilliant  wit  and  his  compactness  of 
expression,  palled  on  the  ear  of  the  public ;  the  great  works 
of  the  old  masters  were  every  day  attracting  more  and  more 
of  the  admiration  which  they  deserved.  The  plays  of  Shak- 
speare  were  better  acted,  better  edited,  and  better  known  than 
they  had  ever  been.  Our  fine  ancient  ballads  were  again  read 
with  pleasure,  and  it  became  a  fashion  to  imitate  them.  Many 
of  the  imitations  were  altogether  contemptible ;  but  they 
showed  that  men  had  at  least  begun  to  admire  the  excellence 
which  they  could  not  rival.  A  literary  revolution  was  evidently 
at  hand.  There  was  a  ferment  in  the  minds  of  men,  a  vague 
craving  for  something  new,  a  disposition  to  hail  with  delight 
anything  which  might  at  first  sight  wear  the  appearance  of 
originality.  A  reforming  age  is  always  fertile  of  impostors. 
The  same  excited  state  of  public  feeling  which  produced  the 
great  separation  from  the  see  of  Rome  produced  also  the 
excesses  of  the  Anabaptists.  The  same  stir  in  the  public  mind 
of  Europe  which  overthrew  the  abuses  of  the  old  French 
Government  produced  the  Jacobins  and  Theophilanthropists. 
Macpherson  and  Delia  Crusca  were  to  the  true  reformers  of 
English  poetry  what  Knipperdoling  was  to  Luther,  or  Clootz 
to  Turgot.  The  success  of  Chatterton's  forgeries  and  of  the 
far  more  contemptible  forgeries  of  Ireland  showed  that  people 


BYRON  77 

had  begun  to  love  the  old  poetry  well,  though  not  wisely.  The 
public  was  never  more  disposed  to  believe  stories  without 
evidence,  and  to  admire  books  without  merit.  Anything  which 
could  break  the  dull  monotony  of  the  correct  school  was 
acceptable. 

The  forerunner  of  the  great  restoration  of  our  literature  was 
Cowper.  His  literary  career  began  and  ended  at  nearly  the 
same  time  with  that  of  Alfieri.  A  comparison  between  Alfieri 
and  Cowper  may  at  first  sight  appear  as  strange  as  that  which 
a  loyal  Presbyterian  minister  is  said  to  have  made  in  1745 
between  George  the  Second  and  Enoch.  It  may  seem  that 
the  gentle,  shy,  melancholy  Calvinist,  whose  spirit  had  been 
broken  by  fagging  at  school,  who  had  not  courage  to  earn  a 
livelihood  by  reading  the  titles  of  bills  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  whose  favourite  associates  were  a  blind  old  lady  and  an 
evangelical  divine,  could  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 
haughty,  ardent,  and  voluptuous  nobleman,  the  horse-jockey, 
the  libertine,  who  fought  Lord  Ligonier  in  Hyde  Park,  and 
robbed  the  Pretender  of  his  queen.  But  though  the  private 
lives  of  these  remarkable  men  present  scarcely  any  points  of 
resemblance,  their  literary  lives  bear  a  close  analogy  to  each 
other.  They  both  found  poetry  in  its  lowest  state  of  degrada- 
tion, feeble,  artificial,  and  altogether  nerveless.  They  both 
possessed  precisely  the  talents  which  fitted  them  for  the  task 
of  raising  it  from  that  deep  abasement.  They  cannot,  in  strict- 
ness, be  called  great  poets.  They  had  not  in  any  very  high 
degree  the  creative  power, 

The  vision  and  the  faculty  divine ; 

but  they  had  great  vigour  of  thought,  great  warmth  of  feeling, 
and  what,  in  their  circumstances,  was  above  all  things  impor- 
tant—  a  manliness  of  taste  which  approached  to  roughness. 
They  did  not  deal  in  mechanical  versification  and  conventional 
phrases.  They  wrote  concerning  things  the  thought  of  which 
set  their  hearts  on  fire ;  and  thus  what  they  wrote,  even  when 
it  wanted  every  other  grace,  had  that  inimitable  grace  which 


7  8  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

sincerity  and  strong  passion  impart  to  the  rudest  and  most 
homely  compositions.  Each  of  them  sought  for  inspiration  in 
a  noble  and  affecting  subject,  fertile  of  images  which  had  not 
yet  been  hackneyed.  Liberty  was  the  muse  of  Alfieri ;  Religion 
was  the  muse  of  Cowper.  The  same  truth  is  found  in  their 
lighter  pieces.  They  were  not  among  those  who  deprecated 
the  severity,  or  deplored  the  absence,  of  an  unreal  mistress  in 
melodious  commonplaces.  Instead  of  raving  about  imaginary 
Chloes  and  Sylvias,  Cowper  wrote  of  Mrs.  Unwin's  knitting- 
needles.  The  only  love-verses  of  Alfieri  were  addressed  to 
one  whom  he  truly  and  passionately  loved.  "  Tutte  le  rime 
amorose  che  seguono,"  says  he,  "  tutte  sono  per  essa,  e  ben 
sue,  e  di  lei  solamente ;  poiche  mai  d'altra  donna  per  certo 
con  cantero." 

These  great  men  were  not  free  from  affectation  ;  but  their 
affectation  was  directlv  opposed  to  the  affectation  which 
generally  prevailed.  Each  of  them  expressed  in  strong  and 
bitter  language  the  contempt  which  he  felt  for  the  effeminate 
poetasters  who  were  in  fashion  both  in  England  and  in  Italy. 
Cowper  complains  that 

Manner  is  all  in  all,  whate'er  is  writ, 
The  substitute  for  genius,  taste,  and  wit. 

He  praised  Pope  ;  yet  he  regretted  that  Pope  had 

Made  poetry  a  mere  mechanic  art, 

And  every  warbler  had  his  tune  by  heart. 

Alfieri  speaks  with  similar  scorn  of  the  tragedies  of  his  prede- 
cessors. "  Mi  cadevano  dalle  mani  per  la  languidezza,  trivialita 
e  prolissita  dei  modi  e  del  verso,  senza  parlare  poi  della  sner- 
vatezza  dei  pensieri.  Or  perche  mai  questa  nostra  divina  lingua, 
si  maschia  anco,  ed  energica,  e  feroce,  in  bocca  di  Dante, 
dovra  ella  farsi  cosi  sbiadata  ed  eunuca  nel  dialogo  tragico  ?  " 
To  men  thus  sick  of  the  languid  manner  of  their  contem- 
poraries ruggedness  seemed  a  venial  fault,  or  rather  a  positive 
merit.  In  their  hatred  of  meretricious  ornament,  and  of  what 
Cowper  calls  "  creamy  smoothness,"  they  erred  on  the  opposite 


BYRON  79 

side.  Their  style  was  too  austere,  their  versification  too  harsh. 
It  is  not  easy,  however,  to  overrate  the  service  which  they 
rendered  to  literature.  The  intrinsic  value  of  their  poems 
is  considerable.  But  the  example  which  they  set  of  mutiny 
against  an  absurd  system  was  invaluable.  The  part  which  they 
performed  was  rather  that  of  Moses  than  that  of  Joshua. 
They  opened  the  house  of  bondage,  but  they  did  not  enter 
the  promised  land. 

During  the  twenty  years  which  followed  the  death  of  Cow- 
per  the  revolution  in  English  poetry  was  fully  consummated. 
None  of  the  writers  of  this  period,  not  even  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
contributed  so  much  to  the  consummation  as  Lord  Byron.  Yet 
Lord  Byron  contributed  to  it  unwillingly,  and  with  constant 
self-reproach  and  shame.  All  his  tastes  and  inclinations  led 
him  to  take  part  with  the  school  of  poetry  which  was  going 
out  against  the  school  which  was  coming  in.  Of  Pope  himself 
he  spoke  with  extravagant  admiration.  He  did  not  venture 
directly  to  say  that  the  little  man  of  Twickenham  was  a  greater 
poet  than  Shakspeare  or  Milton,  but  he  hinted  pretty  clearly 
that  he  thought  so.  Of  his  contemporaries,  scarcely  any  had 
so  much  of  his  admiration  as  Mr.  Gifford,  who,  considered  as 
a  poet,  was  merely  Pope,  without  Pope's  wit  and  fancy,  and 
whose  satires  are  decidedly  inferior  in  vigour  and  poignancy  to 
the  very  imperfect  juvenile  performance  of  Lord  Byron  him- 
self. He  now  and  then  praised  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  Mr. 
Coleridge,  but  ungraciously  and  without  cordiality.  When  he 
attacked  them  he  brought  his  whole  soul  to  the  work.  Of  the 
most  elaborate  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's  poems  he  could  find  noth- 
ing to  say,  but  that  it  was  "  clumsy,  and  frowsy,  and  his  aver- 
sion." Peter  Bell  excited  his  spleen  to  such  a  degree  that  he 
evoked  the  shades  of  Pope  and  Dryden,  and  demanded  of 
them  whether  it  were  possible  that  such  trash  could  evade 
contempt  ?  In  his  heart  he  thought  his  own  Pilgrimage  of 
Harold  inferior  to  his  Imitation  of  Horace's  Art  of  Poetry, 
a  feeble  echo  of  Pope  and  Johnson.  This  insipid  performance 
he  repeatedly  designed  to  publish,  and  was  withheld  only  by 


80  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  solicitations  of  his  friends.  He  has  distinctly  declared  his 
approbation  of  the  unities,  the  most  absurd  laws  by  which  gen- 
ius was  ever  held  in  servitude.  In  one  of  his  works  —  we  think 
in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Bowles  —  he  compares  the  poetry  of  the 
eighteenth  century  to  the  Parthenon,  and  that  of  the  nineteenth 
to  a  Turkish  mosque,  and  boasts  that,  though  he  had  assisted 
his  contemporaries  in  building  their  grotesque  and  barbarous 
edifice,  he  had  never  joined  them  in  defacing  the  remains  of 
a  chaster  and  more  graceful  architecture.  In  another  letter  he 
compares  the  change  which  had  recently  passed  on  English 
poetry  to  the  decay  of  Latin  poetry  after  the  Augustan  age. 
In  the  time  of  Pope,  he  tells  his  friend,  it  was  all  Horace 
with  us.  It  is  all  Claudian  now. 

For  the  great  old  masters  of  the  art  he  had  no  very  enthu- 
siastic veneration.  In  his  letter  to  Mr.  Bowles  he  uses  expres- 
sions which  clearly  indicate  that  he  preferred  Pope's  Iliad  to 
the  original.  Mr.  Moore  confesses  that  his  friend  was  no  very 
fervent  admirer  of  Shakspeare.  Of  all  the  poets  of  the  first 
class  Lord  Byron  seems  to  have  admired  Dante  and  Milton 
most.  Yet  in  the  fourth  canto  of  Childe  Harold,  he  places 
Tasso,  a  writer  not  merely  inferior  to  them,  but  of  quite  a 
different  order  of  mind,  on  at  least  a  footing  of  equality  with 
them.  Mr.  Hunt  is,  we  suspect,  quite  correct  in  saying  that 
Lord  Byron  could  see  little  or  no  merit  in  Spenser. 

But  Byron  the  critic  and  Byron  the  poet  were  two  very  dif- 
ferent men.  The  effects  of  the  noble  writer's  theory  may  in- 
deed often  be  traced  in  his  practice.  But  his  disposition  led 
him  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  literary  taste  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lived ;  and  his  talents  would  have  enabled  him  to 
accommodate  himself  to  the  taste  of  any  age.  Though  he  said 
much  of  his  contempt  for  mankind,  and  though  he  boasted 
that  amidst  the  inconstancy  of  fortune  and  of  fame  he  was  all- 
sufficient  to  himself,  his  literary  career  indicated  nothing  of 
that  lonely  and  unsocial  pride  which  he  affected.  We  cannot 
conceive  him,  like  Milton  or  Wordsworth,  defying  the  criticism 
of  his  contemporaries,  retorting  their  scorn,  and  labouring  on 


BYRON  8 I 

a  poem  in  the  full  assurance  that  it  would  be  unpopular,  and 
in  the  full  assurance  that  it  would  be  immortal.  He  has  said, 
by  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  heroes,  in  speaking  of  political 
greatness,  that  "he  must  serve  who  fain  would  sway";  and 
this  he  assigns  as  a  reason  for  not  entering  into  political  life. 
He  did  not  consider  that  the  sway  which  he  had  exercised  in 
literature  had  been  purchased  by  servitude,  by  the  sacrifice  of 
his  own  taste  to  the  taste  of  the  public. 

He  was  the  creature  of  his  age ;  and  whenever  he  had  lived 
he  would  have  been  the  creature  of  his  age.  Under  Charles 
the  First,  Byron  would  have  been  more  quaint  than  Donne. 
Under  Charles  the  Second,  the  rants  of  Byron's  rhyming  plays 
would  have  pitted  it,  boxed  it,  and  galleried  it,  with  those  of 
any  Bayes  or  Bilboa.  Under  George  the  First,  the  monotonous 
smoothness  of  Byron's  versification  and  the  terseness  of  his 
expression  would  have  made  Pope  himself  envious. 

As  it  was,  he  was  the  man  of  the  last  thirteen  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  of  the  first  twenty-three  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  He  belonged  half  to  the  old,  and  half  to 
the  new  school  of  poetry.  His  personal  taste  led  him  to  the 
former ;  his  thirst  of  praise  to  the  latter ;  his  talents  were 
equally  suited  to  both.  His  fame  was  a  common  ground  on 
which  the  zealots  on  both  sides  —  Gifford  for  example,  and 
Shelley  —  might  meet.  He  was  the  representative,  not  of  either 
literary  party,  but  of  both  at  once,  and  of  their  conflict,  and  of 
the  victory  by  which  that  conflict  was  terminated.  His  poetry 
fills  and  measures  the  whole  of  the  vast  interval  through  which 
our  literature  has  moved  since  the  time  of  Johnson.  It  touches 
the  Essay  on  Man  at  the  one  extremity,  and  the  Excursion  at 
the  other. 

There  are  several  parallel  instances  in  literary  history. 
Voltaire,  for  example,  was  the  connecting  link  between  the 
France  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth  and  the  France  of  Louis  the 
Sixteenth,  between  Racine  and  Boileau  on  the  one  side,  and 
Condorcet  and  Beaumarchais  on  the  other.  He,  like  Lord 
Byron,  put  himself  at  the  head  of  an  intellectual  revolution, 


82  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

dreading  it  all  the  time,  murmuring  at  it,  sneering  at  it,  yet 
choosing  rather  to  move  before  his  age  in  any  direction  than 
to  be  left  behind  and  forgotten.  Dryden  was  the  connecting 
link  between  the  literature  of  the  age  of  James  the  First  and 
the  literature  of  the  age  of  Anne.  Oromasdes  and  Arimanes 
fought  for  him.  Arimanes  carried  him  off.  But  his  heart  was 
to  the  last  with  Oromasdes.  Lord  Byron  was,  in  the  same 
manner,  the  mediator  between  two  generations,  between  two 
hostile  poetical  sects.  Though  always  sneering  at  Mr.  Words- 
worth, he  was  yet,  though  perhaps  unconsciously,  the  inter- 
preter between  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  the  multitude.  In  the 
Lyrical  Ballads  and  the  Excursion  Mr.  Wordsworth  appeared 
as  the  high-priest  of  a  worship  of  which  nature  was  the  idol. 
No  poems  have  ever  indicated  a  more  exquisite  perception  of 
the  beauty  of  the  outer  world  or  a  more  passionate  love  and 
reverence  for  that  beauty.  Yet  they  were  not  popular ;  and  it 
is  not  likely  that  they  ever  will  be  popular  as  the  poetry  of 
Sir  Walter  Scott  is  popular.  The  feeling  which  pervaded 
them  was  too  deep  for  general  sympathy.  Their  style  was 
often  too  mysterious  for  general  comprehension.  They  made  a 
few  esoteric  disciples,  and  many  scoffers.  Lord  Byron  founded 
what  may  be  called  an  exoteric  Lake  school ;  and  all  the 
readers  of  verse  in  England,  we  might  say  in  Europe,  hastened 
to  sit  at  his  feet.  What  Mr.  Wordsworth  had  said  like  a 
recluse,  Lord  Byron  said  like  a  man  of  the  world,  with  less 
profound  feeling,  but  with  more  perspicuity,  energy,  and  con- 
ciseness. We  would  refer  our  readers  to  the  last  two  cantos 
of  Childe  Harold  and  to  Manfred,  in  proof  of  these  observations. 
Lord  Byron,  like  Mr.  Wordsworth,  had  nothing  dramatic  in 
his  genius.  He  was,  indeed,  the  reverse  of  a  great  dramatist, 
the  very  antithesis  to  a  great  dramatist.  All  his  characters  — 
Harold  looking  on  the  sky,  from  which  his  country  and  the 
sun  are  disappearing  together,  the  Giaour  standing  apart  in 
the  gloom  of  the  side  aisle,  and  casting  a  haggard  scowl  from 
under  his  long  hood  at  the  crucifix  and  the  censer,  Conrad 
leaning  on  his  sword  by  the  watch-tower,  Lara  smiling  on  the 


BYRON  83 

dancers,  Alp  gazing  steadily  on  the  fatal  cloud  as  it  passes 
before  the  moon,  Manfred  wandering  among  the  precipices  of 
Berne,  Azzo  on  the  judgment-seat,  Ugo  at  the  bar,  Lambro 
frowning  on  the  siesta  of  his  daughter  and  Juan,  Cain  present- 
ing his  unacceptable  offering  —  are  essentially  the  same.  The 
varieties  are  varieties  merely  of  age,  situation,  and  outward 
show.  If  ever  Lord  Byron  attempted  to  exhibit  men  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  he  always  made  them  either  insipid  or  unnatural. 
Selim  is  nothing.  Bonnivart  is  nothing.  Don  Juan,  in  the 
first  and  best  cantos,  is  a  feeble  copy  of  the  Page  in  the 
Marriage  of  Figaro.  Johnson,  the  man  whom  Juan  meets  in 
the  slave-market,  is  a  most  striking  failure.  How  differently 
would  Sir  Walter  Scott  have  drawn  a  bluff,  fearless  English- 
man in  such  a  situation !  The  portrait  would  have  seemed  to 
walk  out  of  the  canvas. 

Sardanapalus  is  more  closely  drawn  than  any  dramatic  per- 
sonage that  we  can  remember.  His  heroism  and  his  effem- 
inacy, his  contempt  of  death  and  his  dread  of  a  weighty  helmet, 
his  kingly  resolution  to  be  seen  in  the  foremost  ranks,  and 
the  anxiety  with  which  he  calls  for  a  looking-glass  that  he  may 
be  seen  to  advantage,  are  contrasted,  it  is  true,  with  all  the 
point  of  Juvenal.  Indeed  the  hint  of  the  character  seems  to 
have  been  taken  from  what  Juvenal  says  of  Otho : 

Speculum  civilis  sarcina  belli. 
Nimirum  summi  ducis  est  occidere  Galbam, 
Et  curare  cutem  summi  constantia  civis, 
Bedriaci  in  campo  spolium  affectare  Palati, 
Et  pressum  in  faciem  digitis  extendere  panem. 

These  are  excellent  lines  in  a  satire.  But  it  is  not  the 
business  of  the  dramatist  to  exhibit  characters  in  this  sharp 
antithetical  way.  It  is  not  thus  that  Shakspeare  makes  Prince 
Hal  rise  from  the  rake  of  Eastcheap  into  the  hero  of  Shrews- 
bury, and  sink  again  into  the  rake  of  Eastcheap.  It  is  not 
thus  that  Shakspeare  has  exhibited  the  union  of  effeminacy  and 
valour  in  Antony.  A  dramatist  cannot  commit  a  greater  error 
than  that  of  following  those  pointed  descriptions  of  character 


84  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

in  which  satirists  and  historians  indulge  so  much.  It  is  by 
rejecting  what  is  natural  that  satirists  and  historians  produce 
these  striking  characters.  Their  great  object  generally  is  to 
ascribe  to  every  man  as  many  contradictory  qualities  as  pos- 
sible :  and  this  is  an  object  easily  attained.  By  judicious  selec- 
tion and  judicious  exaggeration,  the  intellect  and  the  disposi- 
tion of  any  human  being  might  be  described  as  being  made 
up  of  nothing  but  startling  contrasts.  If  the  dramatist  attempts 
to  create  a  being  answering  to  one  of  these  descriptions,  he 
fails,  because  he  reverses  an  imperfect  analytical  process.  He 
produces,  not  a  man,  but  a  personified  epigram.  Very  eminent 
writers  have  fallen  into  this  snare.  Ben  Jonson  has  given  us 
a  Hermogenes,  taken  from  the  lively  lines  of  Horace ;  but  the 
inconsistency  which  is  so  amusing  in  the  satire  appears  un- 
natural and  disgusts  us  in  the  play.  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  com- 
mitted a  far  more  glaring  error  of  the  same  kind  in  the  novel 
of  Peveril.  Admiring,  as  every  judicious  reader  must  admire, 
the  keen  and  vigorous  lines  in  which  Dryden  satirized  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  Sir  Walter  attempted  to  make  a  Duke 
of  Buckingham  to  suit  them,  a  real  living  Zimri ;  and  he  made, 
not  a  man,  but  the  most  grotesque  of  all  monsters.  A  writer 
who  should  attempt  to  introduce  into  a  play  or  a  novel  such  a 
Wharton  as  the  Wharton  of  Pope,  or  a  Lord  Hervey  answer- 
ing to  Sporus,  would  fail  in  the  same  manner. 

But  to  return  to  Lord  Byron ;  his  women,  like  his  men,  are 
all  of  one  breed.  Haidee  is  a  half -savage  and  girlish  Julia ; 
Julia  is  a  civilised  and  matronly  Haidee.  Leila  is  a  wedded 
Zuleika,  Zuleika  a  virgin  Leila.  Gulnare  and  Medora  appear 
to  have  been  intentionally  opposed  to  each  other ;  yet  the 
difference  is  a  difference  of  situation  only.  A  slight  change  of 
circumstances  would,  it  should  seem,  have  sent  Gulnare  to  the 
lute  of  Medora,  and  armed  Medora  with  the  dagger  of  Gulnare. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,  that  Lord  Byron  could  exhibit 
only  one  man  and  only  one  woman  —  a  man,  proud,  moody, 
cynical,  with  defiance  on  his  brow  and  misery  in  his  heart, 
a  scorner  of  his  kind,  implacable  in  revenge,  yet  capable  of 


BYRON  85 

deep  and  strong  affection  ;  a  woman  all  softness  and  gentle- 
ness, loving  to  caress  and  to  be  caressed,  but  capable  of  being 
transformed  by  passion  into  a  tigress. 

Even  these  two  characters,  his  only  two  characters,  he  could 
not  exhibit  dramatically.  He  exhibited  them  in  the  manner, 
not  of  Shakspeare,  but  of  Clarendon.  He  analysed  them ;  he 
made  them  analyse  themselves ;  but  he  did  not  make  them 
show  themselves.  We  are  told,  for  example,  in  many  lines  of 
great  force  and  spirit,  that  the  speech  of  Lara  was  bitterly 
sarcastic,  that  he  talked  little  of  his  travels,  that  if  he  was  much 
questioned  about  them,  his  answers  became  short,  and  his  brow 
gloomy.  But  we  have  none  of  Lara's  sarcastic  speeches  or 
short  answers.  It  is  not  thus  that  the  great  masters  of  human 
nature  have  portrayed  human  beings.  Homer  never  tells  us 
that  Nestor  loved  to  relate  long  stories  about  his  youth.  Shak- 
speare never  tells  us  that  in  the  mind  of  lago  everything  that  is 
beautiful  and  endearing  was  associated  with  some  filthy  and 
debasing  idea. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  tendency  which  the  dialogue  of 
Lord  Byron  always  has  to  lose  its  character  of  a  dialogue,  and 
to  become  soliloquy.  The  scenes  between  Manfred  and  the 
Chamois-hunter,  between  Manfred  and  the  Witch  of  the  Alps, 
between  Manfred  and  the  Abbot,  are  instances  of  this  tendency. 
Manfred,  after  a  few  unimportant  speeches,  has  all  the  talk  to 
himself.  The  other  interlocutors  are  nothing  more  than  good 
listeners.  They  drop  an  occasional  question  or  ejaculation 
which  sets  Manfred  off  again  on  the  inexhaustible  topic  of  his 
personal  feelings.  If  we  examine  the  fine  passages  in  Lord 
Byron's  dramas  —  the  description  of  Rome,  for  example,  in 
Manfred,  the  description  of  a  Venetian  revel  in  Marino  Faliero, 
the  concluding  invective  which  the  old  doge  pronounces  against 
Venice  —  we  shall  find  that  there  is  nothing  dramatic  in  these 
speeches,  that  they  derive  none  of  their  effect  from  the  character 
or  situation  of  the  speaker,  and  that  they  would  have  been  as 
fine,  or  finer,  if  they  had  been  published  as  fragments  of  blank 
verse  by  Lord  Byron.  There  is  scarcely  a  speech  in  Shakspeare 


86  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  which  the  same  could  be  said.  No  skilful  reader  of  the 
plays  of  Shakspeare  can  endure  to  see  what  are  called  the  fine 
things  taken  out,  under  the  name  of  "Beauties  "  or  of  "Elegant 
Extracts,"  or  to  hear  any  single  passage  —  "To  be  or  not  to  be," 
for  example  —  quoted  as  a  sample  of  the  great  poet.  "To  be 
or  not  to  be"  has  merit,  undoubtedly,  as  a  composition.  It  would 
have  merit  if  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  chorus.  But  its  merit 
as  a  composition  vanishes  when  compared  with  its  merit  as 
belonging  to  Hamlet.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  great 
plays  of  Shakspeare  would  lose  less  by  being  deprived  of  all  the 
passages  which  are  commonly  called  the  fine  passages,  than  those 
passages  lose  by  being  read  separately  from  the  play.  This  is 
perhaps  the  highest  praise  which  can  be  given  to  a  dramatist. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there  is,  in 
all  Lord  Byron's  plays,  a  single  remarkable  passage  which 
owes  any  portion  of  its  interest  or  effect  to  its  connection 
with  the  characters  or  the  action.  He  has  written  only  one 
scene,  as  far  as  we  can  recollect,  which  is  dramatic  even  in 
manner — the  scene  between  Lucifer  and  Cain.  The  conference 
is  animated,  and  each  of  the  interlocutors  has  a  fair  share  of 
it.  But  this  scene,  when  examined,  will  be  found  to  be  a 
confirmation  of  our  remarks.  It  is  a  dialogue  only  in  form.  It 
is  a  soliloquy  in  essence.  It  is  in  reality  a  debate  carried  on 
within  one  single  unquiet  and  sceptical  mind.  The  questions 
and  the  answers,  the  objections  and  the  solutions,  all  belong 
to  the  same  character. 

A  writer  who  showed  so  little  dramatic  skill  in  works  profes- 
sedly dramatic  was  not  likely  to  write  narrative  with  dramatic 
effect.  Nothing  could,  indeed,  be  more  rude  and  careless  than 
the  structure  of  his  narrative  poems.  He  seems  to  have  thought, 
with  the  hero  of  the  Rehearsal,  that  the  plot  was  good  for 
nothing  but  to  bring  in  fine  things.  His  two  longest  works, 
Childe  Harold  and  Don  Juan,  have  no  plan  whatever.  Either  of 
them  might  have  been  extended  to  any  length,  or  cut  short  at 
any  point.  The  state  in  which  the  Giaour  appears  illustrates  the 
manner  in  which  all  Byron's  poems  were  constructed.  They  are 


BYRON  87 

all,  like  the  Giaour,  collections  of  fragments  ;  and,  though  there 
may  be  no  empty  spaces  marked  by  asterisks,  it  is  still  easy  to 
perceive,  by  the  clumsiness  of  the  joining,  where  the  parts  for 
the  sake  of  which  the  whole  was  composed  end  and  begin. 

It  was  in  description  and  meditation  that  Byron  excelled. 
"Description,"  as  he  said  in  Don  Juan,  "was  his  forte."  His 
manner  is  indeed  peculiar,  and  is  almost  unequalled  —  rapid, 
sketchy,  full  of  vigour ;  the  selection  happy ;  the  strokes  few 
and  bold.  In  spite  of  the  reverence  which  we  feel  for  the 
genius  of  Mr.  Wordsworth,  we  cannot  but  think  that  the 
minuteness  of  his  descriptions  often  diminishes  their  effect. 
He  has  accustomed  himself  to  gaze  on  nature  with  the  eye  of 
a  lover,  to  dwell  on  every  feature,  and  to  mark  every  change 
of  aspect.  Those  beauties  which  strike  the  most  negligent  ob- 
server, and  those  which  only  a  close  attention  discovers,  are 
equally  familiar  to  him,  and  are  equally  prominent  in  his  poetry. 
The  proverb  of  old  Hesiod,  that  half  is  often  more  than  the 
whole,  is  eminently  applicable  to  description.  The  policy  of 
the  Dutch,  who  cut  down  most  of  the  precious  trees  in  the 
Spice  Islands  in  order  to  raise  the  value  of  what  remained,  was 
a  policy  which  poets  would  do  well  to  imitate.  It  was  a  policy 
which  no  poet  understood  better  than  Lord  Byron.  Whatever 
his  faults  might  be,  he  was  never,  while  his  mind  retained  its 
vigour,  accused  of  prolixity. 

His  descriptions,  great  as  was  their  intrinsic  merit,  derived 
their  principal  interest  from  the  feeling  which  always  mingled 
with  them.  He  was  himself  the  beginning,  the  middle,  and 
the  end  of  all  his  own  poetry,  the  hero  of  every  tale,  the  chief 
object  in  every  landscape.  Harold,  Lara,  Manfred,  and  a 
crowd  of  other  characters,  were  universally  considered  merely 
as  loose  incognitos  of  Byron ;  and  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  he  meant  them  to  be  so  considered.  The  wonders 
of  the  outer  world  —  the  Tagus,  with  the  mighty  fleets  of  Eng- 
land riding  on  its  bosom,  the  towers  of  Cintra  overhanging  the 
shaggy  forest  of  cork-trees  and  willows,  the  glaring  marble  of 
Pentelicus,  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  the  glaciers  of  Clarens,  the 


88  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

sweet  Lake  of  Leman,  the  dell  of  Egeria  with  its  summer-birds 
and  rustling  lizards,  the  shapeless  ruins  of  Rome  overgrown 
with  ivy  and  wall-flowers,  the  stars,  the  sea,  the  mountains  — 
all  were  mere  accessories,  the  background   to  one  dark  and 
melancholy  figure. 

Never  had  any  writer  so  vast  a  command  of  the  whole 
eloquence  of  scorn,  misanthropy,  and  despair.  That  Marah 
was  never  dry.  No  art  could  sweeten,  no  draughts  could 
exhaust  its  perennial  waters  of  bitterness.  Never  was  there 
such  variety  in  monotony  as  that  of  Byron.  From  maniac 
laughter  to  piercing  lamentation,  there  was  not  a  single  note  of 
human  anguish  of  which  he  was  not  master.  Year  after  year, 
and  month  after  month,  he  continued  to  repeat  that  to  be 
wretched  is  the  destiny  of  all ;  that  to  be  eminently  wretched 
is  the  destiny  of  the  eminent ;  that  all  the  desires  by  which  we 
are  cursed  lead  alike  to  misery  —  if  they  are  not  gratified,  to 
the  misery  of  disappointment;  if  they  are  gratified,  to  the 
misery  of  satiety.  His  heroes  are  men  who  have  arrived  by 
different  roads  at  the  same  goal  of  despair,  who  are  sick  of  life, 
who  are  at  war  with  society,  who  are  supported  in  their  anguish 
only  by  an  unconquerable  pride  resembling  that  of  Prometheus 
on  the  rock  or  of  Satan  in  the  burning  marl,  who  can  master 
their  agonies  by  the  force  of  their  will,  and  who  to  the  last  defy 
the  whole  power  of  earth  and  heaven.  He  always  described  him- 
self as  a  man  of  the  same  kind  with  his  favourite  creations ;  as 
a  man  whose  heart  had  been  withered,  whose  capacity  for  happi- 
ness was  gone  and  could  not  be  restored,  but  whose  invincible 
spirit  dared  the  worst  that  could  befall  him  here  or  hereafter. 

How  much  of  this  morbid  feeling  sprang  from  an  original 
disease  of  the  mind,  how  much  from  real  misfortune,  how 
much  from  the  nervousness  of  dissipation,  how  much  was 
fanciful,  how  much  was  merely  affected,  it  is  impossible  for 
us,  and  would  probably  have  been  impossible  for  the  most 
intimate  friends  of  Lord  Byron,  to  decide.  Whether  there 
ever  existed,  or  can  ever  exist,  a  person  answering  to  the 
description  which  he  gave  of  himself  may  be  doubted ;  but 


BYRON  89 

that  he  was  not  such  a  person  is  beyond  all  doubt.  It  is 
ridiculous  to  imagine  that  a  man  whose  mind  was  really 
imbued  with  scorn  of  his  fellow-creatures  would  have  published 
three  or  four  books  every  year  in  order  to  tell  them  so ;  or 
that  a  man  who  could  say  with  truth  that  he  neither  sought 
sympathy  nor  needed  it  would  have  admitted  all  Europe  to 
hear  his  farewell  to  his  wife,  and  his  blessings  on  his  child. 
In  the  second  canto  of  Childe  Harold,  he  tells  us  that  he  is 
insensible  to  fame  and  obloquy : 

111  may  such  contest  now  the  spirit  move, 
Which  heeds  nor  keen  reproof  nor  partial  praise. 

Yet  we  know  on  the  best  evidence  that,  a  day  or  two  before 
he  published  these  lines,  he  was  greatly,  indeed  childishly, 
elated  by  the  compliments  paid  to  his  maiden  speech  in  the 
House  of  Lords. 

We  are  far,  however,  from  thinking  that  his  sadness  was 
altogether  feigned.  He  was  naturally  a  man  of  great  sensi- 
bility ;  he  had  been  ill  educated  ;  his  feelings  had  been  early 
exposed  to  sharp  trials  ;  he  had  been  crossed  in  his  boyish 
love ;  he  had  been  mortified  by  the  failure  of  his  first  literary 
efforts ;  he  was  straitened  in  pecuniary  circumstances ;  he  was 
unfortunate  in  his  domestic  relations ;  the  public  treated  him 
with  cruel  injustice ;  his  health  and  spirits  suffered  from  his 
dissipated  habits  of  life ;  he  was,  on  the  whole,  an  unhappy 
man.  He  early  discovered  that  by  parading  his  unhappiness 
before  the  multitude  he  produced  an  immense  sensation. 
The  world  gave  him  every  encouragement  to  talk  about  his 
mental  sufferings.  The  interest  which  his  first  confessions 
excited  induced  him  to  affect  much  that  he  did  not  feel ;  and 
the  affectation  probably  reacted  on  his  feelings.  How  far  the 
character  in  which  he  exhibited  himself  was  genuine,  and  how 
far  theatrical,  it  would  probably  have  puzzled  himself  to  say. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  remarkable  man  owed  the 
vast  influence  which  he  exercised  over  his  contemporaries  at 
least  as  much  to  his  gloomy  egotism  as  to  the  real  power  of 


90  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

his  poetry.  We  never  could  very  clearly  understand  how  it  is 
that  egotism,  so  unpopular  in  conversation,  should  be  so  popu- 
lar in  writing ;  or  how  it  is  that  men  who  affect  in  their  com- 
positions qualities  and  feelings  which  they  have  not,  impose 
so  much  more  easily  on  their  contemporaries  than  on  posterity. 
The  interest  which  the  loves  of  Petrarch  excited  in  his  own 
time,  and  the  pitying  fondness  with  which  half  Europe  looked 
upon  Rousseau,  are  well  known.  To  readers  of  our  age,  the 
love  of  Petrarch  seems  to  have  been  love  of  that  kind  which 
breaks  no  hearts;  and  the  sufferings  of  Rousseau  to  have 
deserved  laughter  rather  than  pity,  to  have  been  partly  coun- 
terfeited, and  partly  the  consequences  of  his  own  perverseness 
and  vanity. 

What  our  grandchilden  may  think  of  the  character  of 
Lord  Byron,  as  exhibited  in  his  poetry,  we  will  not  pretend  to 
guess.  It  is  certain  that  the  interest  which  he  excited  during 
his  life  is  without  a  parallel  in  literary  history.  The  feeling 
with  which  young  readers  of  poetry  regarded  him  can  be  con- 
ceived only  by  those  who  have  experienced  it.  To  people  who 
are  unacquainted  with  real  calamity,  "nothing  is  so  dainty 
sweet  as  lovely  melancholy."  This  faint  image  of  sorrow  has 
in  all  ages  been  considered  by  young  gentlemen  as  an  agree- 
able excitement.  Old  gentlemen  and  middle-aged  gentlemen 
have  so  many  real  causes  of  sadness  that  they  are  rarely  in- 
clined "  to  be  as  sad  as  night  only  for  wantonness."  Indeed 
they  want  the  power  almost  as  much  as  the  inclination.  We 
know  very  few  persons  engaged  in  active  life  who,  even  if 
they  were  to  procure  stools  to  be  melancholy  upon,  and  were 
to  sit  down  with  all  the  premeditation  of  Master  Stephen, 
would  be  able  to  enjoy  much  of  what  somebody  calls  the 
"  ecstasy  of  woe." 

Among  that  large  class  of  young  persons  whose  reading  is 
almost  entirely  confined  to  works  of  imagination,  the  popularity 
of  Lord  Byron  was  unbounded.  They  bought  pictures  of  him  ; 
they  treasured  up  the  smallest  relics  of  him  ;  they  learned  his 
poems  by  heart,  and  did  their  best  to  write  like  him,  and  to 


BYRON  91 

look  like  him.  Many  of  them  practised  at  the  glass  in  the 
hope  of  catching  the  curl  of  the  upper  lip,  and  the  scowl  of 
the  brow,  which  appear  in  some  of  his  portraits.  A  few  dis- 
carded their  neck-cloths  in  imitation  of  their  great  leader. 
For  some  years  the  Minerva  press  sent  forth  no  novel  without 
a  mysterious,  unhappy,  Lara-like  peer.  The  number  of  hope- 
ful undergraduates  and  medical  students  who  became  things 
of  dark  imaginings,  on  whom  the  freshness  of  the  heart  ceased 
to  fall  like  dew,  whose  passions  had  consumed  themselves  to 
dust,  and  to  whom  the  relief  of  tears  was  denied,  passes  all 
calculation.  This  was  not  the  worst.  There  was  created  in  the 
minds  of  many  of  these  enthusiasts  a  pernicious  and  absurd 
association  between  intellectual  power  and  moral  depravity. 
From  the  poetry  of  Lord  Byron  they  drew  a  system  of  ethics, 
compounded  of  misanthropy  and  voluptuousness,  a  system 
in  which  the  two  great  commandments  were,  to  hate  your 
neighbour,  and  to  love  your  neighbour's  wife. 

This  affectation  has  passed  away ;  and  a  few  more  years 
will  destroy  whatever  yet  remains  of  that  magical  potency 
which  once  belonged  to  the  name  of  Byron.  To  us  he  is  still 
a  man,  young,  noble,  and  unhappy.  To  our  children  he  will 
be  merely  a  writer ;  and  their  impartial  judgment  will  appoint 
his  place  among  writers,  without  regard  to  his  rank  or  to  his 
private  history.  That  his  poetry  will  undergo  a  severe  sifting, 
that  much  of  what  has  been  admired  by  his  contemporaries  will 
be  rejected  as  worthless,  we  have  little  doubt ;  but  we  have 
as  little  doubt  that,  after  the  closest  scrutiny,  there  will  still 
remain  much  that  can  only  perish  with  the  English  language. 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON 

The  Life  of  Johnson  is  assuredly  a  great,  a  very  great  work. 
Homer  is  not  more  decidedly  the  first  of  heroic  poets,  Shak- 
speare  is  not  more  decidedly  the  first  of  dramatists,  Demosthe- 
nes is  not  more  decidedly  the  first  of  orators,  than  Boswell  is 
the  first  of  biographers.  He  has  no  second.  He  has  distanced 
all  his  competitors  so  decidedly  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
place  them.  Eclipse  is  first,  and  the  rest  nowhere. 

We  are  not  sure  that  there  is  in  the  whole  history  of  the 
human  intellect  so  strange  a  phenomenon  as  this  book.  Many 
of  the  greatest  men  that  ever  lived  have  written  biography. 
Boswell  was  one  of  the  smallest  men  that  ever  lived,  and  he 
has  beaten  them  all.  He  was,  if  we  are  to  give  any  credit  to 
his  own  account  or  to  the  united  testimony  of  all  who  knew 
him,  a  man  of  the  meanest  and  feeblest  intellect.  Johnson 
described  him  as  a  fellow"wno  had  missed  his  only  chance  of 
immortality  by  not  having  been  alive  when  the  Dunciad  was 
written.  Beauclerk  used  his  name  as  a  proverbial  expression 
for  a  bore.  He  was  the  laughing-stock  of  the  whole  of  that 
brilliant  society  which  has  owed  to  him  the  greater  part  of  its 
fame.  He  was  always  laying  himself  at  the  feet  of  some  em- 
inent man,  and  begging  to  be  spit  upon  and  trampled  upon. 
He  was  always  earning  some  ridiculous  nickname,  and  then 
"  binding  it  as  a  crown  unto  him,"  not  merely  in  metaphor, 
but  literally.  He  exhibited  himself  at  the  Shakspeare  Jubilee, 
to  all  the  crowd  which  filled  Stratford-on-Avon,  with  a  placard 
round  his  hat  bearing  the  inscription  of  Corsica  Boswell.  In 
his  Tour,  he  proclaimed  to  all  the  world  that  at  Edinburgh  he 
was  known  by  the  appellation  of  Paoli  Boswell.  Servile  and 
impertinent,  shallow  and  pedantic,  a  bigot  and  a  sot ;  bloated 
with  family  pride,  and  eternally  blustering  about  the  dignity  of 

92 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  93 

a  born  gentleman,  yet  stooping  to  be  a  tale-bearer,  an  eaves- 
dropper, a  common  butt  in  the  taverns  of  London ;  so  curious 
to  know  everybody  who  was  talked  about,  that,  Tory  and  High 
Churchman  as  he  was,  he  manoeuvred,  we  have  been  told,  for 
an  introduction  to  Tom  Paine,  so  vain  of  the  most  childish 
distinctions,  that  when  he  had  been  to  Court,  he  drove  to  the 
office  where  his  book  was  printing  without  changing  his  clothes, 
and  summoned  all  the  printer's  devils  to  admire  his  new  ruffles 
and  sword  ;  such  was  this  man,  and  such  he  was  content  and 
proud  to  be.  FyrnrtH^q-  whph  another^  man  would  have 
hidden,  everything  the  publication  of  which  would  have  made 
another  man  hang  nimseli,  was  matter  of  gay  and  clamorous 
exultation  to  his  weak  and  diseased  mind.  What  silly  things 
he  said,  what  bitter  retorts  he  provoked  ;  how  at  one  place  he 
was  troubled  with  evil  presentiments  which  came  to  nothing ; 
how  at  another  place,  on  waking  from  a  drunken  doze,  he  read 
the  prayer-book  and  took  a  hair  of  the  dog  that  had  bitten  him ; 
how  he  went  to  see  men  hanged  and  came  away  maudlin ;  how 
he  added  five  hundred  pounds  to  the  fortune  of  one  of  his 
babies  because  she  was  not  scared  at  Johnson's  ugly  face;  how 
he  was  frightened  out  of  his  wits  at  sea,  and  how  the  sailors 
quieted  him  as  they  would  have  quieted  a  child ;  how  tipsy  he 
was  at  Lady  Cork's  one  evening,  and  how  much  his  merriment 
annoyed  the  ladies ;  how  impertinent  he  was  to  the  Duchess  of 
Argyll,  and  with  what  stately  contempt  she  put  down  his  im- 
pertinence ;  how  Colonel  Macleod  sneered  to  his  face  at  his 
impudent  obtrusiveness ;  how  his  father  and  the  very  wife  of 
his  bosom  laughed  and  fretted  at  his  fooleries;  all  these  things 
he  proclaimed  to  all  the  world,  as  if  they  had  been  subjects 
for  pride  and  ostentatious  rejoicing.  All  the  caprices  of  his 
temper,  all  the  illusions  of  his  vanity,  all  his  hypochondriac 
whimsies,  all  his  castles  in  the  air,  he  displayed  with  a  cool 
self-complacency,  a  perfect  unconsciousness  that  he  was  mak- 
ing a  fool  of  himself,  to  which  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  parallel 
in  the  whole  history  of  mankind.  He  has  used  many  people 
ill ;  but  assuredly  he  has  used  nobody  so  ill  as  himself. 


94  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

That  such  a  man  should  have  written  one  of  the  best  books 
in  the  world  is  strange  enough.  But  this  is  not  all.  Many 
persons  who  have  conducted  themselves  foolishly  in  active  life, 
and  whose  conversation  has  indicated  no  superior  powers  of 
mind,  have  left  us  valuable  works.  Goldsmith  was  very  justly 
described  by  one  of  his  contemporaries  as  an  inspired  idiot, 
and  by  another  as  a  being 

Who  wrote  like  an  angel,  and  talked  like  poor  Poll. 

La  Fontaine  was  in  society  a  mere  simpleton.  His  blunders 
would  not  come  in  amiss  among  the  stories  of  Hierocles.  But 
these  men  attained  literary  eminence  in  spite  of  their  weak- 
nesses. Boswell  attained  it  by  reason  of  his  weaknesses.  If 

,  ""  —      _J^»ITT 

he  had  not  been  a  great  fool,  he  would  never  have  been  a  great 
wrifcr—  Without  £Llltn?T|iialities  which  made  him  the  jest  and 

the  torment  of  those  among  whom  he  lived,  without  the  offi- 
ciousness,  the  inquisitiveness,  the  effrontery,  the  toad-eating, 
the  insensibility  to  all  reproof,  he  never  could  have  produced 
so  excellent  a  book.  He  was  a  slave,  proud  of  his  servitude ;  a 
Paul  Pry,  convinced  that  his  own  curiosity  and  garrulity  were 
virtues ;  an  unsafe  companion  who  never  scrupled  to  repay  the 
most  liberal  hospitality  by  the  basest  violation  of  confidence ;  a 
man  without  delicacy,  without  shame,  without  sense  enough  to 
know  when  he  was  hurting  the  feelings  of  others  or  when  he 
was  exposing  himself  to  derision ;  and  because  he  was  all  this, 
he  has,  in  an  important  department  of  literature,  immeasurably 
surpassed  such  writers  as  Tacitus,  Clarendon,  Alfieri,  and  his 
own  idol  Johnson. 

Of  the  talents  which  ordinarily  raise  men  to  eminence  as 
writers,  Boswell  had  absolutely  none.  There  is  not  in  all  his 
books  a  single  remark  of  his  own  on  literature,  politics,  reli- 
gion, or  society,  which  is  not  either  commonplace  or  absurd. 
His  dissertations  on  hereditary  gentility,  on  the  slave-trade, 
and  on  the  entailing  of  landed  estates,  may  serve  as  examples. 
To  say  that  these  passages  are  sophistical  would  be  to  pay 
them  an  extravagant  compliment.  They  have  no  pretence  to 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  95 

argument,  or  even  to  meaning.  He  has  reported  innumerable 
observations  made  by  himself  in  the  course  of  conversation. 
Of  thflSF  ^Hervations  we  ^  Tin*  ''•QTyiPmlT?t'  nnp  wh'ch  is  above 
the  intellefiinl  npnn'fy  nf  H  hfy  nf  fiffgp"  He  has  printed 
many  of  his  own  letters,  and  in  these  letters  he  is  always 
ranting  or  twaddling.  Logic,  eloquence,  wit,  taste,  all  those 
things  which  are  generally  considered  as  making  a  book  valu- 
able, were  utterly  wanting  to  him.  He  had,  indeed,  a  quick 
observation  and  a  retentive  memory.  These  qualities,  if  he  had 
been  a  man  of  sense  and  virtue,  would  scarcely  of  themselves 
have  sufficed  to  make  him  conspicuous  ;  but  because  he  was  a_ 
dunce,  a  parasite  and  a.  roxcomh  thpy  b,qw  ma^p  ^jm  jmr"™-^ 
'rfiosejjartSLQ.f  kig  hf^k  which,  considered  abstractedly,  are 
most  utterly  worthless,  are  ^f]ifirKtf"1  whrn  wo  rnri  them  as 
illustratiops  r»f  tK/T^Koro^f^r  of  the  writer.  Bad  in  themselves, 
they  are  good  dramatically,  like  the  nonsense  of  Justice  Shal- 
low, the  clipped  English  of  Dr.  Caius,  or  the  misplaced  con- 
sonants of  FlueUen.  Of  all  confessors,  Boswell  is  the  most 
candid.  Other  men  who  have  pretended  to  lay  open  their  own 
hearts  —  Rousseau,  for  example,  and  Lord  Byron  —  have  evi- 
dently written  with  a  constant  view  to  effect,  and  are  to  be  then 
most  distrusted  when  they  seem  to  be  most  sincere.  There  is 
scarcely  any  man  who  would  not  rather  accuse  himself  of  great 
crimes  and  of  dark  and  tempestuous  passions  than  proclaim 
all  his  little  vanities  and  wild  fancies.  It  would  be  easier  to 
find  a  person  who  would  avow  actions  like  those  of  Caesar 
Borgia  or  Danton,  than  one  who  would  publish  a  day-dream 
like  those  of  Alnaschar  and  Malvolio.  Those  weaknesses 
which  most  men  keep  covered  up  in  the  mostse'cTe'l! 


the""mincl,  not  to  be  disclosed  to  the  eye  of  friendship  or  of 
love,  were  precisely  the  weftkness.es  which  Boswell  paraded 


before  all 


H<*  was  perfectly  frank,   because   the 


weakness  of  his  understanding  and  the  tumult  of  his  spirits 
prevented  him  from  knowing  when  he  made  himself  ridiculous. 
His  book  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  the  conversation  of 
the  inmates  of  the  Palace  of  Truth. 


96  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

His  fame  is  great,  and  it  will,  we  have  no  doubt,  be  lasting; 
but  it  is  fame  of  a  peculiar  kind,  and  indeed  marvellously 
resembles  infamy.  We  rp.mpmber  no  other  case  in  which  the, 
world  has  made  sogreatja  djsJ!u^Uoji_between  a  boojc  and  its 
author.  In  general,  the  book  and  the  author  are  considered 
as  one.  To  admire  the  book  is  to  admire  the  author.  The 
case  of  Boswell  is  an  exception,  we  think  the  only  exception, 
to  this  rule.  His  work  is  universally  allowed  to  be  interesting, 
instructive,  eminently  original ;  yet  it  has  brought  him  nothing 
but  contempt.  All  the  world  reads  it ;  all  the  world  delights 
in  it ;  yet  we  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  read  or  ever  to 
have  heard  any  expression  of  respect  and  admiration  for  the 
man  to  whom  we  owe  so  much  instruction  and  amusement. 
While  edition  after  edition  of  his  book  was  coming  forth,  his 
son,  as  Mr.  Croker  tells  us,  was  ashamed  of  it,  and  hated  to 
hear  it  mentioned.  This  feeling  was  natural  and  reasonable. 
Sir  Alexander  saw  that  in  proportion  to  the  celebrity  of  the 
work  was  the  degradation  of  the  author.  The  very  editors  of 
this  unfortunate  gentleman's  books  have  forgotten  their  alle- 
giance, and,  like  those  Puritan  casuists  who  took  arms  by  the 
authority  of  the  king  against  his  person,  have  attacked  the 
writer  while  doing  homage  to  the  writings.  Mr.  Croker,  for 
example,  has  published  two  thousand  five  hundred  notes  on 
the  life  of  Johnson,  and  yet  scarcely  ever  mentions  the  biog- 
rapher whose  performance  he  has  taken  such  pains  to  illustrate, 
without  some  expression  of  contempt. 

An  ill-natured  man  Boswell  certainly  was  not.  Yet  the 
malignity  of  the  most  malignant  satirist  could  scarcely  cut 
deeper  than  his  thoughtless  loquacity.  Having  himself  no 
sensibility  to  derision  and  contempt,  he  took  it  for  granted 
that  all  others  were  equally  callous.  He  was  not  ashamed  to 
exhibit  himself  to  the  whole  world  as  a  common  spy,  a  com- 
mon tattler,  a  humble  companion  without  the  excuse  of  pov- 
erty, and  to  tell  a  hundred  stories  of  his  own  pertness  and 
folly,  and  of  the  insults  which  his  pertness  and  folly  brought 
upon  him.  It  was  natural  that  he  should  show  little  discretion 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  97 

in  cases  in  which  the  feelings  or  the  honour  of  others  might 
be  concerned.  No  man,  surely,  ever  published  such  stories 
respecting  persons  whom  he  professed  to  love  and  revere.  He~ 
would  infallibly  have  made  his  hero  as  contemptible  as  he  has 
made  himself,  had  not  his  hero  really  possessed  some  moral 
and  intellectual  qualities  of  a  very  high  order.  The  best  proof 
that  Johnson  was  really  an  extraordinary  man  is  that  his 
character,  instead  of  being  degraded,  has,  on  the  whole,  been 
decidedly  raised  by  a  work  in  which  all  his  vices  and  weak- 
nesses are  exposed  more  unsparingly  than  they  ever  were 
exposed  by  Churchill  or  by  Kenrick. 

Johnson  grown  old,  Johnson  in  the  fulness  of  his  fame  and 
in  the  enjoyment  of  a  competent  fortune,  is  better  known  to 
us  than  any  other  man  in  history.  Everything  about  him  —  his" 
coat,  his  wig,  his  figure,  his  face,  his  scrofula,  his  St.  Vitus's 
dance,  his  rolling  walk,  his  blinking  eye,  the  outward  signs 
which  too  clearly  marked  his  approbation  of  his  dinner,  his 
insatiable  appetite  for  fish-sauce  and  veal-pie  with  plums,  his 
inextinguishable  thirst  for  tea,  his  trick  of  touching  the  posts 
as  he  walked,  his  mysterious  practice  of  treasuring  up  scraps 
of  orange-peel,  his  morning  slumbers,  his  midnight'  disputa- 
tions, his  contortions,  his  mutterings,  his  gruntings,  his  puff- 
ings, his  vigorous,  acute,  and  ready  eloquence,  his  sarcastic 
wit,  his  vehemence,  his  insolence,  his  fits  of  tempestuous  rage, 
his  queer  inmates,  old  Mr.  Levett  and  blind  Mrs.  Williams, 
the  cat  Hodge  and  the  negro  Frank — all  are  as  familiar  to  us 
as  the  objects  by  which  we  have  been  surrounded  from  child- 
hood. But  we  have  no  minute  information  respecting  those 
years  of  Johnson  s  nie  during  which  his  character  and  his 
manners  became~immutably  fixed.  We  know  him,  not  as  he 
was  KnoWll  LU  the  Ihen  ol  nis  own  generation,  but  as  he  was 
known  to  men  whose  father  he  might  have  been.  That  cele- 
brated club  of  which  he  was  the  most  distinguished  member 
contained  few  persons  who  could  remember  a  time  when  his 
fame  was  not  fully  established  and  his  habits  completely 
formed.  He  had  made  himself  a  name  in  literature  while 


98  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Reynolds  and   the  Wartons  were  still  boys.    Hewasabout 

Burke.  Goldsmitht  and 


ifton  :  afa^:  thirty  years  older  than  Gibbon,  Beauclerk.  and 
T^ngtinn;  and  about  forty  years  older  than  Lord  ^ftowelL  Sir 

William  Jones,  and  Windham.  Boswell  and  Mrs.  Thrale^the 
two  writers  from  whom  we  derive  most  of  our  knowledge 
respecting  him,  never  saw  him  till  long  after  he  was  fifty 
years  old,  till  most  of  his  great  works  had  become  classical, 
and  till  the  pension  bestowed  on  him  by  the  Crown  had  placed 
him  above  poverty.  Of  those  eminent  men  who  were  his  most 
intimate  associates  towards  the  close  of  his  life,  the  only  one, 
as  far  as  we  remember,  who  knew  him  during  the  first  ten 
or  twelve  years  of  his  residence  in  the  capital,  was  David 
Garrick  ;  and  it  does  not  appear  that,  during  those  years, 
David  Garrick  saw  much  of  his  fellow-townsman. 

Johnson  came  up  to  London  precisely  at  the  time  when  the 

I  condition  of  a  man  of  letters  was  most  miserable  and  degraded. 
It  was  a  dark  night  between  two  sunny  days.  The  age  of 

~"  patronage  had  passed  away.  The  age  of  general  curiosity  and 
intelligence  had  not  arrived.  The  number  of  readers  is  at 
present  so  great  that  a  popular  author  may  subsist  in  comfort 
and  opulence  on  the  profits  of  his  works.  In  the  reigns  of 
William  the  Third,  of  Anne,  and  of  George  the  First,  even 
such  men  as  Congreve  and  Addison  would  scarcely  have  been 
able  to  live  like  gentlemen  by  the  mere  sale  of  their  writings. 
But  the  deficiency  of  the  natural  demand  for  literature  was,  at 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  and  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  more  than  made  up  by  artificial  encourage- 
ment, by  a  vast  system  of  bounties  and  premiums.  There  was, 
perhaps,  never  a  time  at  which  the  rewards  of  literary  merit 
were  so  splendid,  at  which  men  who  could  write  well  found 
such  easy  admittance  into  the  most  distinguished  society,  and 
to  the  highest  honours  of  the  State.  The  chiefs  of  both  the 
great  parties  into  which  the  kingdom  was  divided,  patronized 
literature  with  emulous  munificence.  Congreve,  when  he  had 
scarcely  attained  his  majority,  was  rewarded  for  his  first  comedy 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  99 

with  places  which  made  him  independent  for  life.  Smith, 
though  his  Hippolytns  and  Phcedra  failed,  would  have  been 
consoled  with  three  hundred  a  year  but  for  his  own  folly. 
Rowe  was  not  only  Poet  Laureate,  but  also  land-surveyor  of 
the  customs  in  the  port  of  London,  clerk  of  the  council  to 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  secretary  of  the  Presentations  to  the 
Lord  Chancellor.  Hughes  was  secretary  to  the  Commissions 
of  the  Peace.  Ambrose  Philips  was  judge  of  the  Prerogative 
Court  in  Ireland.  Locke  was  Commissioner  of  Appeals  and 
of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Newton  was  Master  of  the  Mint. 
Stepney  and  Prior  were  employed  in  embassies  of  high  dignity 
and  importance.  Gay,  who  commenced  life  as  apprentice  to  a 
silk  mercer,  became  a  secretary  of  legation  at  five-and-twenty. 
It  was  to  a  poem  on  the  death  of  Charles  the  Second,  and 
to  the  City  and  Country  Mouse,  that  Montague  owed  his 
introduction  into  public  life,  his  earldom,  his  garter,  and  his 
Auditorship  of  the  Exchequer.  Swift,  but  for  the  uncon- 
querable prejudice  of  the  queen,  would  have  been  a  bishop. 
Oxford,  with  his  white  staff  in  his  hand,  passed  through  the 
crowd  of  his  suitors  to  welcome  Parnell,  when  that  ingenious 
writer  deserted  the  Whigs.  Steele  was  a  commissioner  of 
stamps  and  a  member  of  Parliament.  Arthur  Mainwaring 
was  a  commissioner  of  the  customs,  and  auditor  of  the  im- 
prest. Tickell  was  secretary  to  the  Lords  Justices  of  Ireland. 
Addison  was  Secretary  of  State. 

This  liberal  patronage  was  brought  into  fashion,  as  it  seems, 
by  the  magnificent  Dorset,  almost  the  only  noble  versifier  in 
the  Court  of  Charles  the  Second  who  possessed  talents  for 
composition  which  were  independent  of  the  aid  of  a  coronet. 
Montague  owed  his  elevation  to  the  favour  of  Dorset,  and  imi- 
tated through  the  whole  course  of  his  life  the  liberality  to 
which  he  was  himself  so  greatly  indebted.  The  Tory  leaders, 
Harley  and  Bolingbroke  in  particular,  vied  with  the  chiefs  of 
the  Whig  party  in  zeal  for  the  encouragement  of  letters.  But 
soon  after  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover  a  change 
took  place.  The  supreme  power  passed  to  a  man  who  cared 


100  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

little  for  poetry  or  eloquence.  The  importance  of  the  House 
of  Commons  w^  constantly  on  the_increase.  The  Govern- 
ment was  under  the  necessity  of  bartering  for  Parliamentary 
support  much  of  that  patronage  which  had  been  employed  in 
fostering  literary  merit ;  and  Walpole  was  by  no  means  in- 
clined to  divert  any  part  of  the  fund  of  corruption  to  pur- 
poses which  he  considered  as  idle.  He  had  eminent  talents^ 
for  government  and  for  debate.  But  he  had  paid  little  attention  1 
to  books,  and  felt  little  respect  for  authors.  One  of  the  coarse  ^ 
jokes  of  his  friend,  Sir  Charles  Hanbury  Williams,  was  far 
more  pleasing  to  him  than  Thomson's  Seasons  or  Richard- 
son's Pamela.  He  had  observed  that  some  of  the  distin- 
guished writers  whom  the  favour  of  Halifax  had  turned  into 
statesmen  had  been  mere  incumbrances  to  their  party,  dawdlers 
in  office  and  mutes  in  Parliament.  During  the  whole  course 
of  his  administration,  therefore,  he  scarcely  befriended  a  single 
man  of  genius.  The  best  writers  of  the  age  gave  all  their  sup- 
port to  the  Opposition,  and  contributed  to  excite  that  discon- 
tent which,  after  plunging  the  nation  into  a  foolish  and  unjust 
war,  overthrew  the  Minister  to  make  room  for  men  less  able 
and  equally  immoral.  The  Opposition  could  reward  its  eulo- 
gists with  little  more  than  promises  and  caresses.  St.  James's 
would  give  nothing :  Leicester  House  had  nothing  to  give. 

Thus,  at  the  time  when  Johnson  commenced  his  literary 
career,  a  writer  had  little  to  hope  from  the  patronage  of  pow- 
erful individuals.  The  patronage  of  the  public  did  not  yet 
furnish  the  means  of  comfortable  subsistence.  The  prices 
paid  by  booksellers  to  authors  were  so  low  that  a  man  of  con- 
siderable talents  and  unremitting  industry  could  do  little  more 
than  provide  for  the  day  which  was  passing  over  him.  The 
lean  kine  had  eaten  up  the  fat  kine.  The  thin  and  withered 
ears  had  devoured  the  good  ears.  The  season  of  rich  harvest 
was  over,  and  the  period  of  famine  had  begun.  All  that  is 
squalid  and  miserable  might  now  be  summed  up  in  the  word 
Poet.  That  word  denoted  a  creature  dressed  like  a  scarecrow, 
familiar  with  compters  and  spunging-houses,  and  perfectly 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  IOI 

qualified  to  decide  on  the  comparative  merits  of  the  Common 
Side  in  the  King's  Bench  prison  and  of  Mount  Scoundrel  in  the 
Fleet.  Even  the  poorest  pitied  him ;  and  they  well  might  pity 
him.  For  if  their  condition  was  equally  abject,  their  aspirings 
were  not  equally  high,  nor  their  sense  of  insult  equally  acute. 
To  lodge  in  a  garret  up  four  pair  of  stairs,  to  dine  in  a  cellar 
among  footmen  out  of  place,  to  translate  ten  hours  a  day  for 
the  wages  of  a  ditcher,  to  be  hunted  by  bailiffs  from  one 
haunt  of  beggary  and  pestilence  to  another,  from  Grub  Street 
to  St.  George's  Fields,  and  from  St.  George's  Fields  to  the 
alleys  behind  St.  Martin's  church,  to  sleep  on  a  bulk  in  June 
and  amidst  the  ashes  of  a  glass-house  in  December,  to  die  in 
an  hospital,  and  to  be  buried  in  a  parish  vault,  was  the  fate  of 
more  than  one  writer  who,  if  he  had  lived  thirty  years  earlier, 
would  have  been  admitted  to  the  sittings  of  the  Kitcat  or  the 
Scriblerus  Club,  would  have  sat  in  Parliament,  and  would  have 
been  intrusted  with  embassies  to  the  High  Allies ;  who,  if  he 
had  lived  in  our  time,  would  have  found  encouragement  scarcely 
less  munificent  in  Albemarle  Street  or  in  Paternoster  Row. 

As  every  climate  has  its  peculiar  diseases,  so  every  walk  of 
life  has  its  peculiar  temptations.  The  literary  character,  assur- 
edly, has  always  had  its  share  of  faults,  vanity,  jealousy,  mor- 
bid sensibility.  To  these  faults  were  now  superadded  the 
faults  which  are  commonly  found  in  men  whose  livelihood  is 
precarious,  and  whose  principles  are  exposed  to  the  trial  of 
severe  distress.  All  the  vices  of  the  gambler  and  of  the  beg- 
gar were  blended  with  those  of  the  author.  The  prizes  in  the 
wretched  lottery  of  book-making  were  scarcely  less  ruinous 
than  the  blanks.  If  good  fortune  came,  it  came  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  was  almost  certain  to  be  abused.  After  months 
of  starvation  and  despair,  a  full  third  night  or  a  well-received 
dedication  filled  the  pocket  of  the  lean,  ragged,  unwashed  poet 
with  guineas.  He  hastened  to  enjoy  those  luxuries  with  the 
images  of  which  his  mind  had  been  haunted  while  he  was 
sleeping  amidst  the  cinders  and  eating  potatoes  at  the  Irish 
ordinary  in  Shoe  Lane.  A  week  of  taverns  soon  qualified  him 


102  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

for  another  year  of  night-cellars.  Such  was  the  life  of  Savage, 
of  Boyse,  and  of  a  crowd  of  others.  Sometimes  blazing  in 
gold-laced  hats  and  waistcoats ;  sometimes  lying  in  bed  be- 
cause their  coats  had  gone  to  pieces,  or  wearing  paper  cravats 
because  their  linen  was  in  pawn  ;  sometimes  drinking  cham- 
pagne and  Tokay  with  Betty  Careless ;  sometimes  standing  atH 
the  window  of  an  eating-house  in  Porridge  island,  to  snuff  up 
the  scent  of  what  they  could  not  afford  to  taste ;  they  knew 
luxury ;  they  knew  beggary ;  but  they  never  knew  comforj_ 
These  men  were  irreclaimable.  They  looked  on  a  regular  and 
frugal  life  with  the  same  aversion  which  an  old  gipsy  or  a 
Mohawk  hunter  feels  for  a  stationary  abode,  and  for  the  re- 
straints and  securities  of  civilized  communities.  They  were  as 
untameable,  as  much  wedded  to  their  desolate  freedom,  as  the 
wild  ass.  They  could  no  more  be  broken  in  to  the  offices  of 
social  man  than  the  unicorn  could  be  trained  to  serve  and 
abide  by  the  crib.  It  was  well  if  they  did  not,  like  beasts  of 
a  still  fiercer  race,  tear  the  hands  which  ministered  to  their 
necessities.  To  assist  them  was  impossible ;  and  the  most 
benevolent  of  mankind  at  length  became  weary  of  giving  re- 
lief which  was  dissipated  with  the  wildest  profusion  as  soon 
as  it  had  been  received.  If  a  sum  was  bestowed  on  the 
wretched  adventurer,  such  as,  properly  husbanded,  might  have 
supplied  him  for  six  months,  it  was  instantly  spent  in  strange 
freaks  of  sensuality,  and,  before  forty-eight  hours  had  elapsed, 
the  poet  was  again  pestering  all  his  acquaintance  for  twopence 
to  get  a  plate  of  shin  of  beef  at  a  subterraneous  cookshop.  If 
his  friends  gave  him  an  asylum  in  their  houses,  those  houses 
were  forthwith  turned  into  bagnios  and  taverns.  All  order  was 
destroyed  ;  all  business  was  suspended.  The  most  good-natured 
host  began  to  repent  of  his  eagerness  to  serve  a  man  of  genius 
in  distress  when  he  heard  his  guest  roaring  for  fresh  punch 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

A  few  eminent  writers  were  more  fortunate.  Pope  had  been 
raised  above  poverty  by  the  active  patronage  which,  in  his 
youth,  both  the  great  political  parties  had  extended  to  his 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  103 


Homer.  Vnnng;  frnrl  rprfjvpH  th,p  only  pension  ever  bestowed, 
to  the  best  of  our  recollection,  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  as  the 
reward  of  mere  literary  merit.  One  or  two  of  the  many  poets 
who  attached  themselves  to  the  Opposition,  Thomson  in  par- 
ticular and  Mallet,  obtained,  after  much  severe  suffering,  the 
means  of  subsistence  from  their  political  friends.  Richardson, 
like  a  man  of  sense,  kept  his  shop,  and  his  shop  kept  him, 
which  his  novels,  admirable  as  they  are,  would  scarcely  have 
done.  But  nothing  could  be  more  deplorable  than  the  state 
even  of  the  ablest  men,  who  at  that  time  depended  for  sub- 
sistence on  their  writings.  Johnson,  Collins,  Fielding,  and 
Thomson  were  certainly  four  of  the  most  distinguished  per- 
sons that  England  produced  during  the  eighteenth  century  : 
it  is  well  known  that  they  were  all  four  arrested  for  debt. 

Into  calamities  and  difficulties  such  as  these  Johnson  plunged 
in  his  twenty-eighth  year.  From  that  time  till  he  was  three  or 
four  and  fifty,  we  have  little  information  respecting  him  ;  little, 
we  mean,  compared  with  the  full  and  accurate  information 
which  we  possess  respecting  his  proceedings  and  habits  towards 
the  close  of  his  life.  He  emerged  at  length  from  cock- 
lofts and  sixpenny  ordinaries  into  the  society  of  the  polished 
and  the  opulent.  His  fame  was  established.  A  pension  suffi- 
cient for  his  wants  had  been  conferred  on  him  ;  and  he  came 
forth  to  astonish  a  generation  with  which  he  had  almost  as 
little  in  common  as  with  Frenchmen  or  Spaniards. 

In  his  early  years  he  had  occasionally  seen  the  great  ;  but 
he  had  seen  them  as  a  beggar.  He  now  came  among  them  as 
a  companion.  The  demand  for  amusement  and  instruction 
had,  during  the  course  of  twenty  years,  been  gradually  increas- 
ing. The  price  of  literary  labour  had  risen  ;  and  those  rising 
men  of  letters  with  whom  Johnson  was  henceforth  to  associate 
were  for  the  most  part  persons  widely  different  from  those  who 
had  walked  about  with  him  all  night  in  the  streets  for  want  of  a 
lodging.  Burke,  Robertson,  the  Wartons,  Gray,  Mason,  Gibbon,~~\ 
Adam  Smith,  Beattie,  Sir  William  Jones,  Goldsmith,  and  V 
Churchill  were  the  most  distinguished  writers  of  what  may  be 


104  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

called  the  second  generation  of  the  Johnsonian  age.  Of  these 
men  Churchill  was  the  only  one  in  whom  we  can  trace  the 
stronger  lineaments  of  that  character  which,  when  Johnson 
first  came  up  to  London,  was  common  among  authors.  Of 
the  rest,  scarcely  any  had  felt  the  pressure  of  severe  poverty. 
Almost  all  had  been  early  admitted  into  the  most  respectable 
society  on  an  equal  footing.  They  were  men  of  quite  a  differ- 
ent species  from  the  dependants  of  Curll  and  Osborne. 

Johnson  came  among  them  the  solitary  specimen  of  a  past 
age,  the  last  survivor  of  the  genuine  race  of  Grub  Street  hacks ; 
the  last  of  that  generation  of  authors  whose  abject  misery  and 
whose  dissolute  manners  had  furnished  inexhaustible  matter 
to  the  satirical  genius  of  Pope.  From  nature  he  had  received 
an  uncouth  figure,  a  diseased  constitution,  and  an  irritable 
temper.  The  manner  in  which  the  earlier  years  of  his  man- 
hood had  been  passed  had  given  to  his  demeanour,  and  even 
to  his  moral  character,  some  peculiarities  appalling  to  the  civ- 
ilized beings  who  were  the  companions  of  his  old  age.  The 
perverse  irregularity  of  his  hours,  the  slovenliness  of  his  per- 
son, his  fits  of  strenuous  exertion,  interrupted  by  long  intervals 
of  sluggishness,  his  strange  abstinence  and  his  equally  strange 
voracity,  his  active  benevolence,  contrasted  with  the  constant 
rudeness  and  the  occasional  ferocity  of  his  manners  in  society, 
made  him,  in  the  opinion  of  those  with  whom  he  lived  during 
the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life,  a  complete  original.  An  orig- 
inal he  was,  undoubtedly,  in  some  respects.  But  if  we  possessed 
full  information  concerning  those  who  shared  his  early  hard- 
ships, we  should  probably  find  that  what  we  call  his  singularities 
of  manner  were,  for  the  most  part,  failings  which  he  had  in 
common  with  the  class  to  which  he  belonged.  He  ate  at 
Streatham  Park  as  he  had  been  used  to  eat  behind  the  screen 
at  St.  John's  Gate,  when  he  was  ashamed  to  show  his  ragged 
clothes.  He  ate  as  it  was  natural  that  a  man  should  eat,  who, 
during  a  great  part  of  his  life,  had  passed  the  morning  in  doubt 
whether  he  should  have  food  for  the  afternoon.  The  habits  of 
his  early  life  had  accustomed  him  to  bear  privation  with 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  105 

fortitude,  but  not  to  taste  pleasure  with  moderation.  He  could 
fast ;  but,  when  he  did  not  fast,  he  tore  his  dinner  like  a  fam- 
ished wolf,  with  the  veins  swelling  on  his  forehead,  and  the  per- 
spiration running  down  his  cheeks.  H>  .yarr.e1y  ever  took  wine: 
but  when  he  drank  it,  he  drank  it  greedily  and  in  large 
tumblers.  These  were,  in  fact,  mitigated  symptoms  of  that 
same  moral  disease  which  raged  with  such  deadly  malignity  in 
his  friends  Savage  and  Boyse.  The  roughness  and  violence 
which  he  showed  in  society  were  to  be  expected  from  a  man 
whose  temper,  not  naturally  gentle,  had  been  long  tried  by  the 
bitterest  calamities,  by  the  want  of  meat,  of  fire,  and  of  clothes, 
by  the  importunity  of  creditors,  by  the  insolence  of  booksellers, 
by  the  derision  of  fools,  by  the  insincerity  of  patrons,  by  that 
bread  which  is  the  bitterest  of  all  food,  by  those  stairs  which 
are  the  most  toilsome  of  all  paths,  by  that  deferred  hope  which 
makes  the  heart  sick.  Through  all  these  things  the  ill-dressed, 
coarse,  ungainly  pedant  had  struggled  manfully  up  to  eminence 
and  command.  It  was  natural  that,  in  the  exercise  of  his  power, 
he  should  be  "  eo  immitior,  quia  toleraverat,"  that,  though  his 
heart  was  undoubtedly  generous  and  humane,  his  demeanour  in 
society  should  be  harsh  and  despotic.  For  severe  distress  he 
had  sympathy,  ^nd  nnt  only  sympathy  'hut  munificent  relief: 
but_for  the  suffering  which  a  harsh  word  inflicts  upon  a  deli- 
cate mind  he  had  no  pity  ;  for  it  was  a  kind  of  suffering  which 
he  could  scarcely  conceive.  He  would  carry  home  on  his 
shoulders  a  sick  and  starving  girl  from  the  streets.  He  turned 
his  house  into  a  place  of  refuge  for  a  crowd  of  wretched  old 
creatures  who  could  find  no  other  asylum  ;  nor  could  all  their 
peevishness  and  ingratitude  weary  out  his  benevolence.  But  the 
pangs  of  wounded  vanity  seemed  to  him  ridiculous  ;  and  he 
scarcely  felt  sufficient  compassion  even  for  the  pangs  of  wounded 
affection.  He  had  seen  and  felt  so  much  of  sharp  misery,  that 
he  was  not  affected  by  paltry  vexations ;  and  he  seemed  to 
think  that  everybody  ought  to  be  as  much  hardened  to  those 
vexations  as  himself.  He  was  angry  with  Boswell  for  com- 
plaining of  a  headache,  with  Mrs.  Thrale  for  grumbling  about 


106  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  dust  on  the  road,  or  the  smell  of  the  kitchen.  These  were, 
in  his  phrase,  "foppish  lamentations,"  which  people  ought  to 
be  ashamed  to  utter  in  a  world  so  full  of  sin  and  sorrow. 
Goldsmith  crying  because  The  Good-natured  Man  had  failed, 
inspired  him  with  no  pity.  Though  his  own  health  was  not 
good,  he  detested  and  despised  valetudinarians.  Pecuniary 
losses,  unless  they  reduced  the  loser  absolutely  to  beggary, 
moved  him  very  little.  People  whose  hearts  had  been  softened 
by  prosperity  might  weep,  he  said,  for  such  events  ;  but  all  that 
could  be  expected  of  a  plain  man  was  not  to  laugh.  He  was 
not  much  moved  even  by  the  spectacle  of  Lady  Tavistock 
dying  of  a  broken  heart  for  the  loss  of  her  lord.  Such  grief  he 
considered  as  a  luxury  reserved  for  the  idle  and  the  wealthy. 
A  washer-woman,  left  a  widow  with  nine  small  children,  would 
not  have  sobbed  herself  to  death. 

A  person  who  troubled  himself  so  little  about  small  or  senti- 
mental grievances  was  not  likely  to  be  very  attentive  to  the 
feelings  of  others  in  the  ordinary  intercourse  of  society.  He 
could  not  understand  how  a  sarcasm  or  a  reprimand  could 
make  any  man  really  unhappy.  "  My  dear  doctor,"  said  he  to 
Goldsmith,  "  what  harm  does  it  do  to  a  man  to  call  him 
H  olof  ernes  ?"  "Pooh,  ma'am,"  he  exclaimed  to  Mrs.  Carter, 
"  who  is  the  worse  for  being  talked  of  uncharitably  ?  "  Polite- 
ness has  been  well  defined  as  benevolence  in  small  things. 
Johnson  was  impolite,  not  because  he  wanted  benevolence, 
but  because  small  things  appeared  smaller  to  him  than  to 
people  who  had  never  known  what  it  was  to  live  for  fourpence 
halfpenny  a  day. 

The  characteristic  peculiarity  of  his  intellect  was  the  union  of 
great  powers  with  low  prejudices.  If  we  judged  of  him  by  the 
best  parts  of  his  mind,  we  should  place  him  almost  as  high  as 
he  was  placed  by  the  idolatry  of  Boswell ;  if  by  the  worst  parts 
of  his  mind,  we  should  place  him  even  below  Boswell  himself. 
Where  he  was  not  under  the  influence  of  some  strange  scruple 
or  some  domineering  passion,  which  prevented  him  from  boldly 
and  fairly  investigating  a  subject,  he  was  a  wary  and  acute 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  107 

reasoner,  a  little  too  much  inclined  to  scepticism,  and  a  little 
too  fond  of  paradox.  No  man  was  less  likely  to  be  imposed 
upon  by  fallacies  in  argument  or  by  exaggerated  statements  of 
fact.  But  if,  while  he  was  beating  down  sophisms  and  expos- 
ing false  testimony,  some  childish  prejudices,  such  as  would 
excite  laughter  in  a  well-managed  nursery,  came  across  him,  he 
was  smitten  as  if  by  enchantment.  His  mind  dwindled  away 
under  the  spell  from  gigantic  elevation  to  dwarfish  littleness. 
Those  who  had  lately  been  admiring  its  amplitude  and  its  force 
were  now  as  much  astonished  at  its  strange  narrowness  and 
feebleness  as  the  fisherman  in  the  Arabian  tale,  when  he  saw 
the  Genie,  whose  stature  had  overshadowed  the  whole  sea- 
coast,  and  whose  might  seemed  equal  to  a  contest  with  armies, 
contract  himself  to  the  dimensions  of  his  small  prison,  and  lie 
there  the  helpless  slave  of  the  charm  of  Solomon.  ^- 

Johnson  was  in  the  habit  of  sifting  with  extreme  severity 
the  evidence  for  all  stories  which  were  merely  odd.  But  when 
they  were  not  only  odd  but  miraculous,  his  severity  relaxed. 
He  began  to  be  credulous  precisely  at  the  point  where  the 
most  credulous  people  begin  to  be  sceptical.  It  is  curious  to 
observe,  both  in  his  writings  and  in  his  conversation,  the  con- 
trast between  the  disdainful  manner  in  which  he  rejects  unau- 
thenticated  anecdotes,  even  when  they  are  consistent  with  the 
general  laws  of  nature,  and  the  respectful  manner  in  which 
he  mentions  the  wildest  stories  relating  to  the  invisible  world. 
A  man  who  told  him  of  a  water-spout  or  a  meteoric  stone 
generally  had  the  lie  direct  given  him  for  his  pains.  A  man 
who  told  him  of  a  prediction  or  a  dream  wonderfully  accom- 
plished was  sure  of  a  courteous  hearing.  "  Johnson,"  observed 
Hogarth,  "  like  King  David,  says  in  his  haste  that  all  men 
are  liars."  "His  incredulity,"  says  Mrs.  Thrale,  "amounted 
almost  to  disease."  She  tells  us  how  he  browbeat  a  gentle- 
man who  gave  him  an  account  of  a  hurricane  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  a  poor  Quaker  who  related  some  strange  circum- 
stance about  the  red-hot  balls  fired  at  the  siege  of  Gibraltar. 
"  It  is  not  so.  It  cannot  be  true.  Don't  tell  that  story  again. 


108  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

You  cannot  think  how  poor  a  figure  you  make  in  telling  it." 
He  once  said,  half  jestingly,  we  suppose,  that  for  six  months 
he  refused  to  credit  the  fact  of  the  earthquake  at  Lisbon,  and 
that  he  still  believed  the  extent  of  the  calamity  to  be  greatly 
exaggerated.  Yet  he  related  with  a  grave  face  how  old 
Mr.  Cave  of  St.  John's  Gate  saw  a  ghost,  and  how  this  ghost 
was  something  of  a  shadowy  being.  He  went  himself  on  a 
ghost-hunt  to  Cock  Lane,  and  was  angry  with  John  Wesley 
for  not  following  up  another  scent  of  the  same  kind  with 
proper  spirit  and  perseverance.  He  rejects  the  Celtic  geneal- 
ogies and  poems  without  the  least  hesitation ;  yet  he  declares 
himself  willing  to  believe  the  stories  of  the  second-sight.  If 
he  had  examined  the  claims  of  the  Highland  seers  with  half 
the  severity  with  which  he  sifted  the  evidence  for  the  genu- 
ineness of  Fingal,  he  would,  we  suspect,  have  come  away 
from  Scotland  with  a  mind  fully  made  up.  In  his  Lives  of  the 
Poets,  we  find  that  he  is  unwilling  to  give  credit  to  the 
accounts  of  Lord  Roscommon's  early  proficiency  in  his  studies ; 
but  he  tells  with  great  solemnity  an  absurd  romance  about 
some  intelligence  preternaturally  impressed  on  the  mind  of 
that  nobleman.  He  avows  himself  to  be  in  great  doubt  about 
the  truth  of  the  story,  and  ends  by  warning  his  readers  not 
wholly  to  slight  such  impressions. 

Many  of  his  sentiments  on  religious  subjects  are  worthy  of 
a  liberal  and  enlarged  mind.  lie  could  discern  clearly  enough 
the  folly  and  meanness  of  all  bigotry  except  his  own.  Wnen 
he  spoke  of  the  scruples  of  the  Puritans,  he  spoke  like  a 
person  who  had  really  obtained  an  insight  into  the  divine 
philosophy  of  the  New  Testament,  and  who  considered  Chris- 
tianity as  a  noble  scheme  of  government,  tending  to  promote 
the  happiness  and  to  elevate  the  moral  nature  of  man.  The 
horror  which  the  sectaries  felt  for  cards,  Christmas  ale,  plum- 
porridge,  mince-pies,  and  dancing  bears,  excited  his  contempt. 
To  the  arguments  urged  by  some  very  worthy  people  against 
showy  dress  he  replied  with  admirable  sense  and  spirit,  "  Let 
us  not  be  found,  when  our  Master  calls  us,  stripping  the  lace 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  109 

off  our  waistcoats,  but  the  spirit  of  contention  from  our  souls 
and  tongues.  Alas  !  sir,  a  man  who  cannot  get  to  heaven  in  a 
green  coat  will  not  find  his  way  thither  the  sooner  in  a  grey 
one."  Yet  he  was  himself  under  the  tyranny  of  scruples  as 
unreasonable  as  those  of  Hudibras  or  Ralpho,  and  carried  his 
zeal  for  ceremonies  and  for  ecclesiastical  dignities  to  lengths 
altogether  inconsistent  with  reason  or  with  Christian  charity. 
He  has  gravely  noted  down  in  his  diary  that  he  once  com- 
mitted the  sin  of  drinking  coffee  on  Good  Friday.  In  Scot- 
land, he  thought  it  his  duty  to  pass  several  months  without 
joining  in  public  worship,  solely  because  the  ministers  of  the 
Kirk  had  not  been  ordained  by  bishops.  His  mode  of  estimat- 
ing the  piety  of  his  neighbours  was  somewhat  singular. 
"  Campbell,"  said  he,  "  is  a  good  man,  a  pious  man.  I  am 
afraid  he  has  not  been  in  the  inside  of  a  church  for  many 
years  ;  but  he  never  passes  a  church  without  pulling  off  his 
hat  :  this  shows  he  has  good  principles."  Spain  and  Sicily 
must  surely  contain  many  pious  robbers  and  well-principled 
assassins.  Johnson  could  easily  see  that  a  Roundhead  who 
named  all  his  children  after  Solomon's  singers,  and  talked  in 
the  House  of  Commons  about  seeking  the  Lord,  might  be  an 
unprincipled  villain  whose  religious  mummeries  only  aggra- 
'vated  his  guilt.  But  a  man  who  took  off  his  hat  when  he 
passed  a  church  episcopally  consecrated  must  be  a  good  man, 
a  pious  man,  a  man  of  good  principles.  Johnson  could  easily 
see  that  those  persons  who  looked  on  a  dance  or  a  laced 
waistcoat  as  sinful,  deemed  most  ignobly  of  the  attributes  of 
God  and  of  the  ends  of  revelation.  But  with  what  a  storm 
of  invective  he  would  have  overwhelmed  any  man  who  had 
blamed  him  for  celebrating  the  redemption  of  mankind  with 
sugarless  tea  and  butterless  buns  ! 

Nf)hnr1y  npnlm  mnir    contemptuously   "f 


otism.  Nobody  saw  more  clearly  the  error  of  those  who 
regarded  liberty,  not  as  a  means,  but  as  an  end,  and  who 
proposed  to  themselves,  as  the  object  of  their  pursuit,  the 
prosperity  of  the  State  as  distinct  from  the  prosperity  of 


HO  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  individuals  who  compose  the  State.  His  calm  and  settled 
opinion  seems  to  have  been  that  forms  of  government  have 
little  or  no  influence  on  the  happiness  of  society.  This  opinion, 
erroneous  as  it  is,  ought  at  least  to  have  preserved  him  from 
all  intemperance  on  political  questions.  It  did  not,  however, 
preserve  him  from  the  lowest,  fiercest,  and  most  absurd  ex- 
travagances of  party  spirit,  from  rants  which,  in  everything  but 
the  diction,  resembled  those  of  Squire  Western.  He  was,  as 
a  politician,  half  ice  and  half  fire.  On  the  side  of  his  intellect 
he  was  a  mere  Pococurante,  far  too  apathetic  about  public 
affairs,  far  too  sceptical  as  to  the  good  or  evil  tendency  of  any 
form  of  polity.  His  passions,  on  the  contrary,  were  violent  even 
to  slaying  against  all  who  leaned  to  Whiggish  principles.  The 
well-known  lines  which  he  inserted  in  Goldsmith's  Traveller 
express  what  seems  to  have  been  his  deliberate  judgment : 

How  small,  of  all  that  human  hearts  endure, 
That  part  which  kings  or  laws  can  cause  or  cure ! 

He  had  previously  put  expressions  very  similar  into  the  mouth 
of  Rasselas.  It  is  amusing  to  contrast  these  passages  with  the 
torrents  of  raving  abuse  which  he  poured  forth  against  the 
Long  Parliament  and  the  American  Congress.  In  one  of 
the  conversations  reported  by  Boswell  this  inconsistency  dis- 
plays itself  in  the  most  ludicrous  manner. 

"Sir  Adam  Ferguson,"  says  Boswell,  "suggested  that 
luxury  corrupts  a  people,  and  destroys  the  spirit  of  liberty. 
JOHNSON  :  '  Sir,  that  is  all  visionary.  I  would  not  give  half  a 
guinea  to  live  under  one  form  of  government  rather  than  an- 
other. It  is  of  no  moment  to  the  happiness  of  an  individual. 
Sir,  the  danger  of  the  abuse  of  power  is  nothing  to  a  private 
man.  What  Frenchman  is  prevented  passing  his  life  as  he 
pleases  ? '  SIR  ADAM  :  '  But,  sir,  in  the  British  constitution  it 
is  surely  of  importance  to  keep  up  a  spirit  in  the  people,  so  as 
to  preserve  a  balance  against  the  Crown.'  JOHNSON  :  '  Sir,  I  per- 
ceive you  are  a  vile  Whig.  Why  all  this  childish  jealousy  of 
the  power  of  the  Crown  ?  The  Crown  has  not  power  enough.'  " 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  1 1 1 

One  of  the  old  philosophers,  Lord  Bacon  tells  us,  used  to 
say  that  life  and  death  were  just  the  same  to  him.  "  Why, 
then,"  said  an  objector,  "do  you  not  kill  yourself?"  The 
philosopher  answered,  "  Because  it  is  just  the  same."  If  the 
difference  between  two  forms  of  government  be  not  worth 
half  a  guinea,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  Whiggism  can  be 
viler  than  Toryism,  or  how  the  Crown  can  have  too  little 
power.  If  the  happiness  of  individuals  is  not  affected  by 
political  abuses,  zeal  for  liberty  is  doubtless  ridiculous.  But 
zeal  for  monarchy  must  be  equally  so.  No  person  could  have 
been  more  quick-sighted  than  Johnson  to  such  a  contradiction 
as  this  in  the  logic  of  an  antagonist. 

The  judgments  which  Johnson  passed  on  books  were,  in  his 
own  time,  regarded  with  superstitious  veneration,  and,  in  our 
time,  are  generally  treated  with  indiscriminate  contempt.  They 
are  the  judgments  of  a  strong  but  enslaved  understanding. 
The  mind  of  the  critic  was  hedged  round  by  an  uninterrupted 
fence  of  prejudices  and  superstitions.  Within  his  narrow 
limits,  he  displayed  a  vigour  and  an  activity  which  ought  to 
have  enabled  him  to  clear  the  barrier  that  confined  him. 

How  it  chanced  that  a  man  who  reasoned  on  his  premises 
so  ably,  should  assume  his  premises  so  foolishly,  is  one  of  the 
great  mysteries  of  human  nature.  The  same  inconsistency 
may  be  observed  in  the  schoolmen  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Those 
writers  show  so  much  acuteness  and  force  of  mind  in  arguing 
on  their  wretched  data,  that  a  modern  reader  is  perpetually  at 
a  loss  to  comprehend  how  such  minds  came  by  such  data. 
Not  a  flaw  in  the  superstructure  of  the  theory  which  they  are 
rearing  escapes  their  vigilance.  Yet  they  are  blind  to  the 
obvious  unsoundness  of  the  foundation.  It  is  the  same  with 
some  eminent  lawyers.  Their  legal  arguments  are  intellectual 
prodigies,  abounding  with  the  happiest  analogies  and  the  most 
refined  distinctions.  The  principles  of  their  arbitrary  science 
being  once  admitted,  the  statute-book  and  the  reports  being 
once  assumed  as  the  foundations  of  reasoning,  these  men  must 
be  allowed  to  be  perfect  masters  of  logic.  But  if  a  question 


112  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

arises  as  to  the  postulates  on  which  their  whole  system  rests,  if 
they  are  called  upon  to  vindicate  the  fundamental  maxims  of 
that  system  which  they  have  passed  their  lives  in  studying, 
these  very  men  often  talk  the  language  of  savages  or  of  children. 
Those  who  have  listened  to  a  man  of  this  class  in  his  own 
court,  and  who  have  witnessed  the  skill  with  which  he  analyzes 
and  digests  a  vast  mass  of  evidence,  or  reconciles  a  crowd  of 
precedents  which  at  first  sight  seem  contradictory,  scarcely 
know  him  again  when,  a  few  hours  later,  they  hear  him  speak- 
ing on  the  other  side  of  Westminster  Hall  in  his  capacity 
of  legislator.  They  can  scarcely  believe  that  the  paltry 
quirks  which  are  faintly  heard  through  a  storm  of  coughing, 
and  which  do  not  impose  on  the  plainest  country  gentleman, 
can  proceed  from  the  same  sharp  and  vigorous  intellect  which 
had  excited  their  admiration  under  the  same  roof,  and  on  the 
same  day. 

Johnson  decided  literary  questions  like  a  lawyer,  not  like 
a  legjsjaterT  hie  never  examined  foundations  where  a  point 
was  already  ruled.  His  whole  code  of  criticism  rested  on  pure 
assumption,  for  which  he  sometimes  quoted  a  precedent  or  an 
authority,  but  rarely  troubled  himself  to  give  a  reason  drawn 
from  the  nature  of  things.  He  took  it  for  granted  that  the 
kind  of  poetry  which  flourished  in  his  own  time,  which  he  had 
been  accustomed  to  hear  praised  from  his  childhood,  and 
which  he  had  himself  written  with  success,  was  the  best  kind 
of  poetry.  In  his  biographical  work  he  has  repeatedly  laid  it 
down  as  an  undeniable  proposition  that  during  the  latter  part 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  earlier  part  of  the  eighteenth, 
English  poetry  had  been  in  a  constant  progress  of  improve- 
ment. Waller,  Denham,  Dryden,  and  Pope  had  been,  according 
to  him,  the  great  reformers.  He  judged  of  all  works  of  the 
imagination  by  the  standard  established  among  his  own  con- 
temporaries. Though  he  allowed  Homer  to  have  been  a 
greater  man  than  Virgil,  he  seems  to  have  thought  the  ^Eneid 
a  greater  poem  than  the  Iliad.  Indeed,  he  well  might  have 
thought  so,  for  he  preferred  Pope's  Iliad  to  Homer's.  He 
pronounced  that,  after  Hoole's  translation  of  Tasso,  Fairfax's 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  1 1  3 

would  hardly  be  reprinted.  He  could  see  no  merit  in  our  fine 
old  English  ballads,  and  always  spoke  with  the  most  provoking 
contempt  of  Percy's  fondness  for  them.  Of  the  great  original 
works  of  imagination  which  appeared  during  his  time,  Richard- 
son's novels  alone  excited  his  admiration.  He  could  see  little 
or  no  merit  in  Tom  Jones,  in  Gulliver 's  Travels,  or  in  Tristram 
Shandy.  To  Thomson's  Castle  of  Indolence  he  vouchsafed  only 
a  line  of  cold  commendation  —  of  commendation  much  colder 
than  what  he  has  bestowed  on  the  Creation  of  that  portentous 
bore,  Sir  Richard  Blackmore.  Gray  was,  in  his  dialect,  a  barren 
rascal.  Churchill  was  a  blockhead.  The  contempt  which  he 
felt  for  the  trash  of  Macpherson  was  indeed  just ;  but  it  was, 
we  suspect,  just  by  chance.  He  despised  the  Fingal  for  the 
very  reason  which  led  many  men  of  genius  to  admire  it.  He 
despised  it,  not  because  it  was  essentially  commonplace,  but 
because  it  had  a  superficial  air  of  originality. 

He  was  undoubtedly  an  excellent  judge  of  compositions 
fashioned  on  his  own  principles  ;  but  when  a  deeper  philosophy 
was  required,  when  he  undertook  to  pronounce  judgment  on 
the  works  of  those  great  minds  which  "  yield  homage  only  to 
eternal  laws,"  his  failure  was  ignominious.  He  criticized 
Pope's  Epitaphs  excellently ;  but  his  observations  on  Shak- 
speare's  plays  and  Milton's  poems  seem  to  us  for  the  most 
part  as  wretched  as  if  they  had  been  written  by  Rymer  himself, 
whom  we  take  to  have  been  the  worst  critic  that  ever  lived. 

Some  of  Johnson's  whims  on  literary  subjects  can  be  com- 
pared only  to  that  strange  nervous  feeling  which  made  him 
uneasy  if  he  had  not  touched  every  post  between  the  Mitre 
tavern  and  his  own  lodgings.  His  preference  of  Latin  epitaphs 
to  English  epitaphs  is  an  instance.  An  English  epitaph,  he 
said,  would  disgrace  Smollett.  He  declared  that  he  would  not 
pollute  the  walls  of  Westminster  Abbey  with  an  English 
epitaph  on  Goldsmith.  What  reason  there  can  be  for  celebrating 
a  British  writer  in  Latin,  which  there  was  not  for  covering  the 
Roman  arches  of  triumph  with  Greek  inscriptions,  or  for 
commemorating  the  deeds  of  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae  in 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  we  are  utterly  unable  to  imagine. 


114  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

On  men  and  manners,  at  least  on  the  men  and  manners  of  a 
particular  place  and  a  particular  age,  Johnson  had  certainly 
looked  with  a  most  observant  and  discriminating  eye.  His 
remarks  on  the  education  of  children,  on  marriage,  on  the 
economy  of  families,  on  the  rules  of  society,  are  always  striking, 
and  generally  sound.  In  his  writings,  indeed,  the  knowledge  of 
life  which  he  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree  is  very  imper- 
fectly exhibited.  Like  those  unfortunate  chiefs  of  the  Middle 
Ages  who  were  suffocated  by  their  own  chain-mail  and  cloth  of 
gold,  his  maxims  perish  under  that  load  of  words  which  was  de- 
signed for  their  defence  and  their  ornament.  But  it  is  clear  from 
the  remains  of  his  conversation  that  he  had  more  of  that  homely 
wisdom  which  nothing  but  experience  and  observation  can  give 
than  any  writer  since  the  time  of  Swift.  If  he  had  been  content 
to  write  as  he  talked,  he  might  have  left  books  on  the  practical 
art  of  living  superior  to  the  Directions  to  Servants. 

Yet  even  his  remarks  on  society,  like  his  remarks  on  litera- 
ture, indicate  a  mind  at  least  as  remarkable  for  narrowness  as 
for  strength.  He  was  no  master  of  the  great  science  of  human 
nature.  He  had  studied,  not  the  genus  man,  but  the  species 
Londoner.  Nobody  was  ever  so  thoroughly  conversant  with 
all  the  forms  of  life  and  all  the  shades  of  moral  and  intel- 
lectual character  which  were  to  be  seen  from  Islington  to  the 
Thames,  and  from  Hyde  Park  Corner  to  Mile-End  Green. 
But  his  philosophy  stopped  at  the  first  turnpike-gate.  Of  the 
rural  life  of  England  he  knew  nothing ;  and  he  took  it  for 
granted  that  everybody  who  lived  in  the  country  was  either 
stupid  or  miserable.  "  Country  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  must 
be  unhappy ;  for  they  have  not  enough  to  keep  their  lives  in 
mjotion"  ;  as  if  all  those  peculiar  habits  and  associations  which 
made  Fleet  Street  and  Charing  Cross  the  finest  views  in  the 
world  to  himself  had  been  essential  parts  of  human  nature. 
Of  remote  countries  and  past  times  he  talked  with  wild  and 
ignorant  presumption.  "  The  Athenians  of  the  age  of  Demos- 
thenes," he  said  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  "were  a  people  of  brutes,  a 
barbarous  people."  In  conversation  with  Sir  Adam  Ferguson 


V 

SAMUEL  JOHNSON  115 

he  used  similar  language.  "  The  boasted  Athenians,"  he  said, 
"  were  barbarians.  The  mass  of  every  people  must  be  bar- 
barous where  there  is  no  printing."  The  fact  was  this  :  he  saw 
that  a  Londoner  who  could  not  read  was  a  very  stupid  and 
brutal  fellow :  he  saw  that  great  refinement  of  taste  and  activity 
of  intellect  were  rarely  found  in  a  Londoner  who  had  not  read 
much  ;  and  because  it  was  by  means  of  books  that  people 
acquired  almost  all  their  knowledge  in  the  society  with  which 
he  was  acquainted,  he  concluded,  in  defiance  of  the  strongest 
and  clearest  evidence,  that  the  human  mind  can  be  cultivated 
by  means  of  books  alone.  An  Athenian  citizen  might  possess 
very  few  volumes ;  and  the  largest  library  to  which  he  had 
access  might  be  much  less  valuable  than  Johnson's  bookcase 
in  Bolt  Court ;  but  the  Athenian  might  pass  every  morning 
in  conversation  with  Socrates,  and  might  hear  Pericles  speak 
four  or  five  times  every  month.  He  saw  the  plays  of  Sophocles 
and  Aristophanes ;  he  walked  amidst  the  friezes  of  Phidias 
and  the  paintings  of  Zeuxis ;  he  knew  by  heart  the  choruses 
of  yEschylus ;  he  heard  the  rhapsodist  at  the  corner  of  the 
streets  reciting  the  Skidd  of  Achilles  or  the  Death  of  Argus  ; 
he  was  a  legislator,  conversant  with  high  questions  of  alliance, 
revenue,  and  war ;  he  was  a  soldier,  trained  under  a  liberal 
and  generous  discipline ;  he  was  a  judge  compelled  every  day 
to  weigh  the  effect  of  opposite  arguments.  These  things  were 
in  themselves  an  education  —  an  education  eminently  fitted,  not, 
indeed,  to  form  exact  or  profound  thinkers,  but  to  give  quick- 
ness to  the  perceptions,  delicacy  to  the  taste,  fluency  to  the 
expression,  and  politeness  to  the  manners.  All  this  was  over- 
looked. An  Athenian  who  did  not  improve  his  mind  by 
reading  was,  in  Johnson's  opinion,  much  such  a  person  as  a 
Cockney  who  made  his  mark,  much  such  a  person  as  black 
Frank  before  he  went  to  school,  and  far  inferior  to  a  parish 
clerk  or  a  printer's  devil. 

Johnson's  friends  have  allowed  that  he  carried  to  a  ridiculous 
extreme  his  unjust  contempt  for  foreigners.  He  pronounced 
the  French  to  be  a  very  silly  people,  much  behind  us,  stupid, 


Ii6  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

ignorant  creatures.  And  this  judgment  he  formed  after  having 
been  at  Paris  about  a  month,  during  which  he  would  not  talk 
French,  for  fear  of  giving  the  natives  an  advantage  over  him 
in  conversation.  He  pronounced  them,  also,  to  be  an  indelicate 
people,  because  a  French  footman  touched  the  sugar  with  his 
fingers.  That  ingenious  and  amusing  traveller,  M.  Simond, 
has  defended  his  countrymen  very  successfully  against  John- 
son's accusations,  and  has  pointed  out  some  English  practices 
which,  to  an  impartial  spectator,  would  seem  at  least  as  incon- 
sistent with  physical  cleanliness  and  social  decorum  as  those 
which  Johnson  so  bitterly  reprehended.  To  the  sage,  as  Bos- 
well  loves  to  call  him,  it  never  occurred  to  doubt  that  there 
must  be  something  eternally  and  immutably  good  in  the  usages 
to  which  he  had  been  accustomed.  In  fact,  Johnson's  remarks 
on  society  beyond  the  bills  of  mortality  are  generally  of  much 
the  same  kind  with  those  of  honest  Tom  Dawson,  the  English 
footman  in  Dr.  Moore's  Zcluco.  "  Suppose  the  King  of  France 
has  no  sons,  but  only  a  daughter ;  then,  when  the  king  dies, 
this  here  daughter,  according  to  that  there  law,  cannot  be  made 
queen,  but  the  next  near  relative,  provided  he  is  a  man,  is 
made  king,  and  not  the  last  king's  daughter,  which,  to  be  sure, 
is  very  unjust.  The  French  footguards  are  dressed  in  blue, 
and  all  the  marching  regiments  in  white,  which  has  a  very 
foolish  appearance  for  soldiers ;  and  as  for  blue  regimentals, 
it  is  only  fit  for  the  blue  horse  or  the  artillery." 

Johnson's  visit  to  the  Hebrides  introduced  him  to  a  state  of 
society  completely  new  to  him ;  and  a  salutary  suspicion  of 
his  own  deficiencies  seems  on  that  occasion  to  have  crossed 
his  mind  for  the  first  time.  He  confessed,  in  the  last  para- 
graph of  his  Journey,  that  his  thoughts  on  national  manners 
were  the  thoughts  of  one  who  had  seen  but  little,  of  one  who 
had  passed  his  time  almost  wholly  in  cities.  This  feeling, 
however,  soon  passed  away.  It  is  remarkable  that  to  the  last 
he  entertained  a  fixed  contempt  for  all  those  modes  of  life  and 
those  studies  which  tend  to  emancipate  the  mind  from  the 
prejudices  of  a  particular  age  or  a  particular  nation.  Of 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  117 

foreign  travel  and  of  history  he  spoke  with  the  fierce  and 
boisterous  contempt  of  ignorance.  "What  does  a  man  learn 
by  travelling  ?  Is  Beauclerk  the  better  for  travelling  ?  What 
did  Lord  Charlemont  learn  in  his  travels,  except  that  there 
was  a  snake  in  one  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt  ?  "  History  was, 
in  his  opinion,  to  use  the  fine  expression  of  Lord  Plunkett,  an 
old  almanack :  historians  could,  as  he  conceived,  claim  no 
higher  dignity  than  that  of  almanack-makers  ;  and  his  favourite 
historians  were  those  who,  like  Lord  Hailes,  aspired  to  no 
higher  dignity.  He  always  spoke  with  contempt  of  Robertson. 
Hume  he  would  not  even  read.  He  affronted  one  of  his 
friends  for  talking  to  him  about  Catiline's  conspiracy,  and 
declared  that  he  never  desired  to  hear  of  the  Punic  war  again 
as  long  as  he  lived. 

Assuredly  one  fact  which  does  not  directly  affect  our  own 
interests,  considered  in  itself,  is  no  better  worth  knowing  than 
another  fact.  The  fact  that  there  is  a  snake  in  a  pyramid,  or 
the  fact  that  Hannibal  crossed  the  Alps,  are  in  themselves  as 
unprofitable  to  us  as  the  fact  that  there  is  a  green  blind  in  a 
particular  house  in  Threadneedle  Street,  or  the  fact  that  a  Mr. 
Smith  comes  into  the  city  every  morning  on  the  top  of  one  of 
the  Blackwall  stages.  But  it  is  certain  that  those  who  will  not 
crack  the  shell  of  history  will  never  get  at  the  kernel.  John- 
son, with  hasty  arrogance,  pronounced  the  kernel  worthless, 
because  he  saw  no  value  in  the  shell.  The  real  use  of  travelling 
to  distant  countries  and  of  studying  the  annals  of  past  times 
isjtopreseryemen  from  the  contraction  oLmind  which  those 
can  hardly  escape  whose~~whole  communion  is  with  one  gener- 
ation and  one  neighbourhood,  who  arrive  at  conclusions  by 
means  of  an  induction  not  sufficiently  copious,  and  who  there- 
fore constantly  confound  exceptions  with  rules,  and  accidents 
with  essential  properties.  In  short,  the  real  use  of  travelling 
and  of  studying  history  is  to  keep  men  from  being  what  Tom 
Dawson  was  in  fiction,  and  Samuel  Johnson  in  reality. 

Johnson,  as  Mr.  Burke  most  justly  observed,  appears  far 
greater  in  Boswell's  books  than  in  his  own.  His  conversation 


I  IS  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

appears  to  have  been  quite  equal  to  his  writings  in  matter,  and 
far  superior  to  them  in  manner.  When  he  talked,  he  clothed 
his  wit  and  his  sense  in  forcible  and  natural  expressions.  As 
soon  as  he  took  his  pen  in  his  hand  to  write  for  the  public, 
his  style  became  systematically  vicious.  All  his  books  are 
written  in  a  learned  language  —  in  a  language  which  nobody 
hears  from  his  mother  or  his  nurse  ;  in  a  language  in  which 
nobody  ever  quarrels,  or  drives  bargains,  or  makes  love ;  in  a 
language  in  which  nobody  ever  thinks.  It  is  clear  that  Johnson 
himself  did  not  think  in  the  dialect  in  which  he  wrote.  The 
expressions  which  came  first  to  his  tongue  were  simple,  ener- 
getic, and  picturesque.  When  he  wrote  for  publication,  he  did 
his  sentences  out  of  English  into  Johnsonese.  His  letters 
from  the  Hebrides  to  Mrs.  Thrale  are  the  original  of  that 
work  of  which  the  Journey  to  the  Hebrides  is  the  translation  ; 
and  it  is  amusing  to  compare  the  two  versions.  "  When  we 
were  taken  up-stairs,"  says  he  in  one  of  his  letters,  "a  dirty 
fellow  bounced  out  of  the  bed  on  which  one  of  us  was  to  lie." 
This  incident  is  recorded  in  the  Journey  as  follows  :  "  Out  of 
one  of  the  beds  on  which  we  were  to  repose  started  up,  at 
our  entrance,  a  man  black  as  a  Cyclops  from  the  forge." 
Sometimes  Johnson  translated  aloud.  "  The  Rehearsal"  he 
said,  very  unjustly,  "has  not  wit  enough  to  keep  it  sweet"  ; 
then,  after  a  pause,  "  it  has  not  vitality  enough  to  preserve  it 
from  putrefaction." 

Mannerism  is  pardonable,  and  is  sometimes  even  agreeable, 
when  the  manner,  though  vicious,  is  natural.  Few  readers, 
for  example,  would  be  willing  to  part  with  the  mannerism  of 
Milton  or  of  Burke.  But  a  mannerism  which  does  not  sit 
easy  on  the  mannerist,  which  has  been  adopted  on  principle, 
and  which  can  be  sustained  only  by  constant  effort,  is  always 
offensive.  And  such  is  the  mannerism  of  Johnson. 

The  characteristic  faults  of  his  style  are  so  familiar  to  all 
our  readers,  and  have  been  so  often  burlesqued,  that  it  is 
almost  superfluous  to  point  them  out.  It  is  well  known  that 
he  made  less  use  than  any  other  eminent  writer  of  those 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  119 

strong  plain  words,  Anglo-Saxon  or  Norman-French,  of  which 
the  roots  lie  in  the  inmost  depths  of  our  language ;  and  that 
he  felt  a  vicious  partiality  for  terms  which,  long  after  our  own 
speech  had  been  fixed,  were  borrowed  from  the  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  which,  therefore,  even  when  lawfully  naturalized, 
must  be  considered  as  born  aliens,  not  entitled  to  rank  with 
the  king's  English.  His  constant  practice  of  padding  out  a 
sentence  with  useless  epithets  till  it  became  as  stiff  as  the 
bust  of  an  exquisite ;  his  antithetical  forms  of  expression, 
constantly  employed  even  where  there  is  no  opposition  in  the 
ideas  expressed ;  his  big  words  wasted  on  little  things ;  his  harsh 
inversions,  so  widely  different  from  those  graceful  and  easy 
inversions  which  give  variety,  spirit,  and  sweetness  to  the 
expression  of  our  great  old  writers  ;  all  these  peculiarities  have 
been  imitated  by  his  admirers  and  parodied  by  his  assailants, 
till  the  public  have  become  sick  of  the  subject. 

Goldsmith  said  to  him,  very  wittily  and  very  justly,  "If  you 
were  to  write  a  fable  about  little  fishes,  doctor,  you  would 
make  the  little  fishes  talk  like  whales."  No  man  surely  ever 
had  so  little  talent  for  personation  as  Johnson.  Whether  he 
wrote  in  the  character  of  a  disappointed  legacy-hunter  or  an 
empty  town  fop,  of  a  crazy  virtuoso  or  a  flippant  coquette,  he 
wrote  in  the  same  pompous  and  unbending  style.  His  speech, 
like  Sir  Piercy  Shaf ton's  Euphuistic  eloquence,  bewrayed  him 
under  every  disguise.  Euphelia  and  Rhodoclea  talk  as  finely 
as  Imlac  the  poet,  or  Seged,  Emperor  of  Ethiopia.  The  gay 
Cornelia  describes  her  reception  at  the  country-house  of  her 
relations  in  such  terms  as  these  :  "I  was  surprised,  after  the 
civilities  of  my  first  reception,  to  find,  instead  of  the  leisure 
and  tranquillity  which  a  rural  life  always  promises,  and,  if  well 
conducted,  might  always  afford,  a  confused  wildness  of  care, 
and  a  tumultuous  hurry  of  diligence,  by  which  every  face  was 
clouded  and  every  motion  agitated."  The  gentle  Tranquilla 
informs  us  that  she  "  had  not  passed  the  earlier  part  of  life 
without  the  flattery  of  courtship  and  the  joys  of  triumph ;  but 
had  danced  the  round  of  gaiety  amidst  the  murmurs  of  envy 


120  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  the  gratulations  of  applause ;  had  been  attended  from 
pleasure  to  pleasure  by  the  great,  the  sprightly,  and  the  vain ; 
and  had  seen  her  regard  solicited  by  the  obsequiousness  of 
gallantry,  the  gaiety  of  wit,  and  the  timidity  of  love."  Surely 
Sir  John  Falstaff  himself  did  not  wear  his  petticoats  with  a 
worse  grace.  The  reader  may  well  cry  out  with  honest  Sir 
Hugh  Evans,  "  I  like  not  when  a  'oman  has  a  great  peard  :  I 
spy  a  great  peard  under  her  muffler."  1 

We  had  something  more  to  say ;  but  our  article  is  already 
too  long,  and  we  must  close  it.  We  would  fain  part  in  good 
humour  from  the  hero,  from  the  biographer,  and  even  from  the 
editor,  who,  ill  as  he  has  performed  his  task,  has  at  least  this 
claim  to  our  gratitude,  that  he  has  induced  us  to  read  Boswell's 
book  again.  As  we  close  it,  the  club-room  is  before  us,  and 
the  table  on  which  stands  the  omelet  for  Nugent  and  the 
lemons  for  Johnson.  There  are  assembled  those  heads  which 
live  for  ever  on  the  canvas  of  Reynolds.  There  are  the 
spectacles  of  Burke  and  the  tall  thin  form  of  Langton,  the 
courtly  sneer  of  Beauclerk  and  the  beaming  smile  of  Garrick, 
Gibbon  tapping  his  snuffbox  and  Sir  Joshua  with  his  trumpet 
in  his  ear.  In  the  foreground  is  that  strange  figure  which  is 
as  familiar  to  us  as  the  figures  of  those  among  whom  we  have 
been  brought  up,  the  gigantic  body,  the  huge  massy  face, 
seamed  with  the  scars  of  disease,  the  brown  coat,  the  black 
worsted  stockings,  the  grey  wig  with  the  scorched  foretop,  the 
dirty  hands,  the  nails  bitten  and  pared  to  the  quick.  We  see 
the  eyes  and  mouth  moving  with  convulsive  twitches ;  we  see 
the  heavy  form  rolling  ;  we  hear  it  puffing  ;  and  then  comes  the 
"  Why,  sir  !  "  and  the  "  What  then,  sir  ?  "  and  the  "  No,  sir  !  " 
and  the  "  You  don't  see  your  way  through  the  question,  sir !  " 

What  a  singular  destiny  has  been  that  of  this  remarkable 
man !  To  be  regarded  in  his  own  age  as  a  classic,  and  in 
ours  as  a  companion.  To  receive  from  his  contemporaries 

1  It  is  proper  to  observe  that  this  passage  bears  a  very  close  resemblance 
to  a  passage  in  the  Rambler  (No.  20).  The  resemblance  may  possibly  be 
the  effect  of  unconscious  plagiarism. 


SAMUEL  JOHNSON  1 21 

that  full  homage  which  men  of  genius  have  in  general  received 
only  from  posterity !  To  be  more  intimately  known  to  pos- 
terity than  other  men  are  known  to  their  contemporaries ! 
That  kind  of  fame  which  is  commonly  the  most  transient  is, 
in  his  case,  the  most  durable.  The  reputation  of  those  writ- 
ings which  he  probably  expected  to  be  immortal  is  every  day 
fading  ;  while  those  peculiarities  of  manner  and  that  careless 
table-talk,  the  memory  of  which,  he  probably  thought,  would 
die  with  him,  are  likely  to  be  remembered  as  long  as  the 
English  language  is  spoken  in  any  quarter  of  the  globe. 


JOHN  BUNYAN 

The  characteristic  peculiarity  of  the  Pilgrim  s  Progress  is  that 
it  is  the  only  work  of  its  kind  which  possesses  a  strong  human 
interest.  Other  allegories  only  amuse  the  fancy.  The  allegory 
of  Bunyan  has  been  read  by  many  thousands  with  tears.  There 
are  some  good  allegories  in  Johnson's  works,  and  some  of  still 
higher  merit  by  Addison.  In  these  performances  there  is, 
perhaps,  as  much  wit  and  ingenuity  as  in  the  Pilgrim  s  Progress. 
But  the  pleasure  which  is  produced  by  the  Vision  of  Mirza,  the 
Vision  of  Theodore,  the  Genealogy  of  Wit,  or  the  Contest  between 
Rest  and  Labour,  is  exactly  similar  to  the  pleasure  which  we 
derive  from  one  of  Cowley's  odes  or  from  a  canto  of  Hndibras. 
It  is  a  pleasure  which  belongs  wholly  to  the  understanding,  and 
in  which  the  feelings  have  no  part  whatever.  Nay,  even 
Spenser  himself,  though  assuredly  one  of  the  greatest  poets  that 
ever  lived,  could  not  succeed  in  the  attempt  to  make  allegory 
interesting.  It  was  in  vain  that  he  lavished  the  riches  of  his 
mind  on  the  House  of  Pride  and  the  House  of  Temperance. 
One  unpardonable  fault,  the  fault  of  tediousness,  pervades  the 
whole  of  the  Fairy  Queen.  We  become  sick  of  cardinal  virtues 
and  deadly  sins,  and  long  for  the  society  of  plain  men  and 
women.  Of  the  persons  who  read  the  first  canto,  not  one  in 
ten  reaches  the  end  of  the  first  book,  and  not  one  in  a  hundred 
perseveres  to  the  end  of  the  poem.  Very  few  and  very  weary 
are  those  who  are  in  at  the  death  of  the  Blatant  Beast.  If  the 
last  six  books,  which  are  said  to  have  been  destroyed  in  Ireland, 
had  been  preserved,  we  doubt  whether  any  heart  less  stout  than 
that  of  a  commentator  would  have  held  out  to  the  end. 

It  is  not  so  with  the  Pilgrim  s  Progress.  That  wonderful  book, 
while  it  obtains  admiration  from  the  most  fastidious  critics,  is 
loved  by  those  who  are  too  simple  to  admire  it.  Dr.  Johnson, 


JOHN  BUN  VAN  123 

all  whose  studies  were  desultory,  and  who  hated,  as  he  said,  to 
read  books  through,  made  an  exception  in  favour  of  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  That  work  was  one  of  the  two  or  three 
works  which  he  wished  longer.  It  was  by  no  common  merit 
that  the  illiterate  sectary  extracted  praise  like  this  from  the 
most  pedantic  of  critics  and  the  most  bigoted  of  Tories.  In 
the  wildest  parts  of  Scotland  the  Pilgrim  s  Progress  is  the  delight 
of  the  peasantry.  In  every  nursery  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  is  a 
greater  favourite  than  Jack  the  Giant-killer.  Every  reader 
knows  the  straight  and  narrow  path  as  well  as  he  knows  a  road 
in  which  he  has  gone  backward  and  forward  a  hundred  times. 
This  is  the  highest  miracle  of  genius,  that  things  which  are  not 
should  be  as  though  they  were,  that  the  imaginations  of  one 
mind  should  become  the  personal  recollections  of  another. 
And  this  miracle  the  tinker  has  wrought.  There  is  no  ascent, 
/no  declivity,  no  resting-place,  no  turnstile,  with  which  we  are 
not  perfectly  acquainted.  The  wicket-gate,  and  the  desolate 
swamp  which  separates  it  from  the  City  of  Destruction  ;  the 
long  line  of  road,  as  straight  as  a  rule  can  make  it ;  the  Inter- 
preter's house  and  all  its  fair  shows ;  the  prisoner  in  the  iron 
cage ;  the  palace,  at  the  doors  of  which  armed  men  kept  guard, 
and  on  the  battlements  of  which  walked  persons  clothed  all  in 
gold ;  the  cross  and  the  sepulchre ;  the  steep  hill  and  the 
pleasant  harbour,  the  stately  front  of  the  House  Beautiful  by  the 
wayside ;  the  chained  lions  crouching  in  the  porch ;  the  low  green 
valley  of  Humiliation,  rich  with  grass  and  covered  with  flocks  — 
all  are  as  well  known  to  us  as  the  sights  of  our  own  street. 
Then  we  come  to  the  narrow  place  where  Apollyon  strode  right 
across  the  whole  breadth  of  the  way  to  stop  the  journey  of 
Christian,  and  where,  afterwards,  the  pillar  was  set  up  to 
testify  how  bravely  the  pilgrim  had  fought  the  good  fight.  As 
we  advance,  the  valley  becomes  deeper  and  deeper.  The  shade 
of  the  precipices  on  both  sides  falls  blacker  and  blacker.  The 
clouds  gather  overhead.  Doleful  voices,  the  clanking  of  chains, 
and  the  rushing  of  many  feet  to  and  fro,  are  heard  through  the 
darkness.  The  way,  hardly  discernible  in  gloom,  runs  close  by 


124  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  mouth  of  the  burning  pit,  which  sends  forth  its  flames,  its 
noisome  smoke,  and  its  hideous  shapes  to  terrify  the  adventurer. 
Thence  he  goes  on,  amidst  the  snares  and  pitfalls,  with  the 
mangled  bodies  of  those  who  have  perished  lying  in  the  ditch 
by  his  side.  At  the  end  of  the  long  dark  valley  he  passes  the 
dens  in  which  the  old  giants  dwelt,  amidst  the  bones  of  those 
whom  they  had  slain. 

Then  the  road  passes  straight  on  through  a  waste  moor,  till 
at  length  the  towers  of  a  distant  city  appear  before  the  traveller ; 
and  soon  he  is  in  the  midst  of  the  innumerable  multitudes  of 
Vanity  Fair.  There  are  the  jugglers  and  the  apes,  the  shops 
and  the  puppet-shows.  There  are  Italian  Row,  and  French 
Row,  and  Spanish  Row,  and  British  Row,  with  their  crowds 
of  buyers,  sellers,  and  loungers,  jabbering  all  the  languages  of 
the  earth. 

Thence  we  go  on  by  the  little  hill  of  the  silver  mine,  and 
through  the  meadow  of  lilies,  along  the  bank  of  that  pleasant 
river  which  is  bordered  on  both  sides  by  fruit-trees.  On  the  left 
branches  off  the  path  leading  to  the  horrible  castle,  the  court- 
yard of  which  is  paved  with  the  skulls  of  pilgrims ;  and  right 
onward  are  the  sheepfolds  and  orchards  of  the  Delectable 
Mountains. 

From  the  Delectable  Mountains,  the  way  lies  through  the 
fogs  and  briars  of  the  Enchanted  Ground,  with  here  and  there 
a  bed  of  soft  cushions  spread  under  a  green  arbour.  And 
beyond  is  the  land  of  Beulah,  where  the  flowers,  the  grapes, 
and  the  songs  of  birds  never  cease,  and  where  the  sun  shines 
night  and  day.  Thence  are  plainly  seen  the  golden  pavements 
and  streets  of  pearl,  on  the  other  side  of  that  black  and  cold 
river  over  which  there  is  no  bridge. 

All  the  stages  of  the  journey,  all  the  forms  which  cross  or 
overtake  the  pilgrims,  giants  and  hobgoblins,  ill-favoured  ones 
and  shining  ones,  the  tall,  comely,  swarthy  Madam  Bubble,  with 
her  great  purse  by  her  side,  and  her  fingers  playing  with  the 
money,  the  black  man  in  the  bright  vesture,  Mr.  Worldly- Wise- 
man and  my  Lord  Hategood,  Mr.  Talkative  and  Mrs.  Timorous, 


JOHN  BUNYAN  125 

all  are  actually  existing  beings  to  us.  We  follow  the  travellers 
through  their  allegorical  progress  with  interest  not  inferior  to  that 
with  which  we  follow  Elizabeth  from  Siberia  to  Moscow,  or 
Jeanie  Deans  from  Edinburgh  to  London.  Bunyan  is  almost 
the  only  .writer  who  ever  gave  to  the  abstract  the  interest  of 
the  concrete.  In  the  works  of  many  celebrated  authors  men 
are  mere  personifications.  We  have  not  a  jealous  man,  but 
jealousy  ;  not  a  traitor,  but  perfidy ;  not  a  patriot,  but  patriotism. 
The  mind  of  Bunyan,  on  the  contrary,  was  so  imaginative  that 
personifications,-  when  he  dealt  with  them,  became  men.  A  di- 
alogue between  two  qualities,  in  his  dream,  has  more  dramatic 
effect  than  a  dialogue  between  two  human  beings  in  most  plays. 
In  this  respect  the  genius  of  Bunyan  bore  a  great  resemblance 
to  that  of  a  man  who  had  very  little  else  in  common  with  him  — 
Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.  The  strong  imagination  of  Shelley  made 
him  an  idolater  in  his  own  despite.  Out  of  the  most  indefinite 
terms  of  a  hard,  cold,  dark,  metaphysical  system,  he  made  a 
gorgeous  Pantheon,  full  of  beautiful,  majestic,  and  life-like 
forms.  He  turned  atheism  itself  into  a  mythology,  rich  with 
visions  as  glorious  as  the  gods  that  live  in  the  marble  of  Phidias, 
or  the  virgin  saints  that  smile  on  us  from  the  canvas  of  Murillo. 
The  Spirit  of  Beauty,  the  Principle  of  Good,  the  Principle  of 
Evil,  when  he  treated  of  them,  ceased  to  be  abstractions.  They 
took  shape  and  colour.  They  were  no  longer  mere  words,  but 
"intelligible  forms";  "fair  humanities";  objects  of  love,  of 
adoration,  or  of  fear.  As  there  can  be  no  stronger  sign  of  a 
mind  destitute  of  the  poetical  faculty  than  that  tendency  which 
was  so  common  among  the  writers  of  the  French  school  to  turn 
images  into  abstractions  —  Venus  for  example,  into  Love, 
Minerva  into  Wisdom,  Mars  into  War,  and  Bacchus  into 
Festivity  —  so  there  can  be  no  stronger  sign  of  a  mind  truly 
poetical  than  a  disposition  to  reverse  this  abstracting  process, 
and  to  make  individuals  out  of  generalities.  Some  of  the 
metaphysical  and  ethical  theories  of  Shelley  were  certainly  most 
absurd  and  pernicious.  But  we  doubt  whether  any  modern 
poet  has  possessed  in  an  equal  degree  some  of  the  highest 


126  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

qualities  of  the  great  ancient  masters.  The  words  bard  and 
inspiration,  which  seem  so  cold  and  affected  when  applied  to 
other  modern  writers,  have  a  perfect  propriety  when  applied  to 
him.  He  was  not  an  author,  but  a  bard.  His  poetry  seems 
not  to  have  been  an  art,  but  an  inspiration.  Had  he  lived 
to  the  full  age  of  man,  he  might  not  improbably  have  given 
to  the  world  some  great  work  of  the  very  highest  rank  in 
design  and  execution.  But,  alas  ! 


'O  Aa<£vts  e/3a  poov 
Tov  MUKTOIS  <£i'Aoi/  avBpa,   TOV  ov  Nvyu,<£atcriv  a.-rrf.^0rj. 


But  we  must  return  to  Bunyan.  The  Pilgrim  s  Progress 
undoubtedly  is  not  a  perfect  allegory.  The  types  are  often 
inconsistent  with  each  other  ;  and  sometimes  the  allegorical 
disguise  is  altogether  thrown  off.  The  river,  for  example,  is 
emblematic  of  death  ;  and  we  are  told  that  every  human  being 
must  pass  through  the  river.  But  Faithful  does  not  pass 
through  it.  He  is  martyred,  not  in  shadow,  but  in  reality,  at 
Vanity  Fair.  Hopeful  talks  to  Christian  about  Esau's  birth- 
right and  about  his  own  convictions  of  sin  as  Bunyan  might 
have  talked-  with  one  of  his  own  congregation.  The  damsels 
at  the  House  Beautiful  catechize  Christiana's  boys,  as  any 
good  ladies  might  catechize  any  boys  at  a  Sunday  School. 
But  we  do  not  believe  that  any  man,  whatever  might  be  his 
genius,  and  whatever  his  good  luck,  could  long  continue  a 
figurative  history  without  falling  into  many  inconsistencies. 
We  are  sure  that  inconsistencies,  scarcely  less  gross  than  the 
worst  into  which  Bunyan  has  fallen,  may  be  found  in  the 
shortest  and  most  elaborate  allegories  of  the  Spectator  and 
the  Rambler.  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  and  the  History  of  John 
Bull  swarm  with  similar  errors,  if  the  name  of  error  can  be 
properly  applied  to  that  which  is  unavoidable.  It  is  not  easy 
to  make  a  simile  go  on  all-fours.  But  we  believe  that  no 
human  ingenuity  could  produce  such  a  centipede  as  a  long 
allegory  in  which  the  correspondence  between  the  outward 
sign  and  the  thing  signified  should  be  exactly  preserved. 


JOHN  BUNYAN  127 

Certainly  no  writer,  ancient  or  modern,  has  yet  achieved  the 
adventure.  The  best  thing,  on  the  whole,  that  an  allegorist 
can  do  is  to  present  to  his  readers  a  succession  of  analogies, 
each  of  which  may  separately  be  striking  and  happy,  without 
looking  very  nicely  to  see  whether  they  harmonize  with  each 
other.  This  Bunyan  has  done  ;  and  though  a  minute  scrutiny 
may  detect  inconsistencies  in  every  page  of  his  Tale,  the  gen- 
eral effect  which  the  Tale  produces  on  all  persons,  learned  and 
unlearned,  proves  that  he  has  done  well.  The  passages  which 
it  is  most  difficult  to  defend  are  those  in  which  he  altogether 
drops  the  allegory,  and  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  pilgrims 
religious  ejaculations  and  disquisitions  better  suited  to  his  own 
pulpit  at  Bedford  or  Reading  than  to  the  Enchanted  Ground 
or  to  the  Interpreter's  Garden.  Yet  even  these  passages, 
though  we  will  not  undertake  to  defend  them  against  the 
objections  of  critics,  we  feel  that  we  could  ill  spare.  We  feel 
that  the  story  owes  much  of  its  charm  to  these  occasional 
glimpses  of  solemn  and  affecting  subjects,  which  will  not  be 
hidden,  which  force  themselves  through  the  veil,  and  appear 
before  us  in  their  native  aspect.  The  effect  is  not  unlike  that 
which  is  said  to  have  been  produced  on  the  ancient  stage, 
when  the  eyes  of  the  actor  were  seen  flaming  through  his 
mask,  and  giving  life  and  expression  to  what  would  else  have 
been  an  inanimate  and  uninteresting  disguise. 

It  is  very  amusing  and  very  instructive  to  compare  the 
Pilgrim  s  Progress  with  the  Grace  Abounding.  The  latter 
work  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  remarkable  pieces  of  autobi-. 
ography  in  the  world.  It  is  a  full  and  open  confession  of  the 
fancies  which  passed  through  the  mind  of  an  illiterate  man, 
whose  affections  were  warm,  whose  nerves  were  irritable, 
whose  imagination  was  ungovernable,  and  who  was  under  the 
influence  of  the  strongest  religious  excitement.  In  whatever 
age  Bunyan  had  lived,  the  history  of  his  feelings  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  been  very  curious.  But  the  time  in  which  his 
lot  was  cast  was  the  time  of  a  great  stirring  of  the  human 
mind.  A  tremendous  burst  of  public  feeling,  produced  by  the 


128  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

tyranny  of  the  hierarchy,  menaced  the  old  ecclesiastical  insti- 
tutions with  destruction.  To  the  gloomy  regularity  of  one 
intolerant  Church  had  succeeded  the  license  of  innumerable 
sects,  drunk  with  the  sweet  and  heady  must  of  their  new 
liberty.  Fanaticism,  engendered  by  persecution,  and  destined 
to  engender  persecution  in  turn,  spread  rapidly  through  society. 
Even  the  strongest  and  most  commanding  minds  were  not 
proof  against  this  strange  taint.  Any  time  might  have  pro- 
duced George  Fox  and  James  Naylor.  But  to  one  time  alone 
belong  the  fanatic  delusions  of  such  a  statesman  as  Vane,  and 
the  hysterical  tears  of  such  a  soldier  as  Cromwell. 

The  history  of  Bunyan  is  the  history  of  a  most  excitable 
mind  in  an  age  of  excitement.  By  most  of  his  biographers  he 
has  been  treated  with  gross  injustice.  They  have  understood 
in  a  popular  sense  all  those  strong  terms  of  self-condemnation 
which  he  employed  in  a  theological  sense.  They  have,  there- 
fore, represented  him  as  an  abandoned  wretch,  reclaimed  by 
means  almost  miraculous,  or,  to  use  their  favourite  metaphor, 
"  as  a  brand  plucked  from  the  burning."  Mr.  Ivimey  calls 
him  the  depraved  Bunyan,  and  the  wicked  tinker  of  Elstow. 
Surely  Mr.  Ivimey  ought  to  have  been  too  familiar  with  the 
bitter  accusations  which  the  most  pious  people  are  in  the  habit 
of  bringing  against  themselves,  to  understand  literally  all  the 
strong  expressions  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  Grace 
Abounding.  It  is  quite  clear,  as  Mr.  Southey  most  justly 
remarks,  that  Bunyan  never  was  a  vicious  man.  He  married 
very  early ;  and  he  solemnly  declares  that  he  was  strictly  faith- 
ful to  his  wife.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  drunkard. 
He  owns,  indeed,  that  when  a  boy  he  never  spoke  without  an 
oath.  But  a  single  admonition  cured  him  of  this  bad  habit 
for  life ;  and  the  cure  must  have  been  wrought  early ;  for  at 
eighteen  he  was  in  the  army  of  the  Parliament,  and  if  he  had 
carried  the  vice  of  profaneness  into  that  service,  he  would 
doubtless  have  received  something  more  than  an  admonition 
from  Serjeant  Bind-their-kings-in-chains,  or  Captain  Hew- 
Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord.  Bell-ringing  and  playing  at 


JOHN  BUNYAN  129 

hockey  on  Sundays  seem  to  have  been  the  worst  vices  of  this 
depraved  tinker.  They  would  have  passed  for  virtues  with 
Archbishop  Laud.  It  is  quite  clear  that,  from  a  very  early  age, 
Bunyan  was  a  man  of  a  strict  life  and  of  a  tender  conscience. 
"He  had  been,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "a  blackguard."  Even 
this  we  think  too  hard  a  censure.  Bunyan  was  not,  we  admit, 
so  fine  a  gentleman  as  Lord  Digby ;  but  he  was  a  blackguard 
no  otherwise  than  as  every  labouring  man  that  ever  lived  has 
been  a  blackguard.  Indeed  Mr.  Southey  acknowledges  this. 
"  Such  he  might  have  been  expected  to  be  by  his  birth, 
breeding,  and  vocation.  Scarcely,  indeed,  by  possibility,  could 
he  have  been  otherwise."  A  man  whose  manners  and  senti- 
ments are  decidedly  below  those  of  his  class  deserves  to  be 
called  a  blackguard  ;  but  it  is  surely  unfair  to  apply  so  strong 
a  word  of  reproach  to  one  who  is  only  what  the  great  mass  of 
every  community  must  inevitably  be. 

Those  horrible  internal  conflicts  which  Bunyan  has  described 
with  so  much  power  of  language  prove,  not  that  he  was  a 
worse  man  than  his  neighbours,  but  that  his  mind  was  con- 
stantly occupied  by  religious  considerations,  that  his  fervour 
exceeded  his  knowledge,  and  that  his  imagination  exercised 
despotic  power  over  his  body  and  mind.  He  heard  voices 
from  heaven.  He  saw  strange  visions  of  distant  hills,  pleasant 
and  sunny  as  his  own  Delectable  Mountains.  From  those 
abodes  he  was  shut  out,  and  placed  in  a  dark  and  horrible 
wilderness,  where  he  wandered  through  ice  and  snow,  striving 
to  make  his  way  into  the  happy  region  of  light.  At  one  time 
he  was  seized  with  an  inclination  to  work  miracles.  At  an- 
other time  he  thought  himself  actually  possessed  by  the  devil. 
He  could  distinguish  the  blasphemous  whispers.  He  felt  his 
infernal  enemy  pulling  at  his  clothes  behind  him.  He 
spurned  with  his  feet  and  struck  with  his  hands  at  the  de- 
stroyer. Sometimes  he  was  tempted  to  sell  his  part  in  the 
salvation  of  mankind.  Sometimes  a  violent  impulse  urged 
him  to  start  up  from  his  food,  to  fall  on  his  knees,  and  to 
break  forth  into  prayer.  At  length  he  fancied  that  he  had 


130  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

committed  the  unpardonable  sin.  His  agony  convulsed  his 
robust  frame.  He  was,  he  says,  as  if  his  breastbone  would 
split ;  and  this  he  took  for  a  sign  that  he  was  destined  to 
burst  asunder  like  Judas.  The  agitation  of  his  nerves  made 
all  his  movements  tremulous  ;  and  this  trembling,  he  supposed, 
was  a  visible  mark  of  his  reprobation,  like  that  which  had 
been  set  on  Cain.  At  one  time,  indeed,  an  encouraging  voice 
seemed  to  rush  in  at  the  window,  like  the  noise  of  wind,  but 
very  pleasant,  and  commanded,  as  he  says,  a  great  calm  in 
his  soul.  At  another  time,  a  word  of  comfort  "  was  spoke 
loud  unto  him ;  it  showed  a  great  word ;  it  seemed  to  be  writ 
in  great  letters."  But  these  intervals  of  ease  were  short.  His 
state,  during  two  years  and  a  half,  was  generally  the  most 
horrible  that  the  human  mind  can  imagine.  "  I  walked,"  says 
he,  with  his  own  peculiar  eloquence,  "  to  a  neighbouring  town, 
and  sat  down  upon  a  settle  in  the  street,  and  fell  into  a  very 
deep  pause  about  the  most  fearful  state  my  sin  had  brought 
me  to ;  and,  after  long  musing,  I  lifted  up  my  head ;  but 
methought  I  saw  as  if  the  sun  that  shineth  in  the  heavens 
did  grudge  to  give  me  light,  and  as  if  the  very  stones  in  the 
street,  and  tiles  upon  the  houses,  did  band  themselves  against 
me.  Methought  that  they  all  combined  together  to  banish  me 
out  of  the  world.  I  was  abhorred  of  them,  and  unfit  to  dwell 
among  them,  because  I  had  sinned  against  the  Saviour.  Oh, 
how  happy  now  was  every  creature  over  I !  for  they  stood  fast, 
and  kept  their  station ;  but  I  was  gone  and  lost !  "  Scarcely 
any  madhouse  could  produce  an  instance  of  delusion  so 
strong,  or  of  misery  so  acute. 

It  was  through  this  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  over- 
hung by  darkness,  peopled  with  devils,  resounding  with 
blasphemy  and  lamentation,  and  passing  amidst  quagmires, 
snares,  and  pitfalls,  close  by  the  very  mouth  of  hell,  that 
Bunyan  journeyed  to  that  bright  and  fruitful  land  of  Beulah,  in 
which  he  sojourned  during  the  latter  period  of  his  pilgrimage. 
The  only  trace  which  his  cruel  sufferings  and  temptations 
seem  to  have  left  behind  them  was  an  affectionate  compassion 


JOHN  BUNYAN  131 

for  those  who  were  still  in  the  state  in  which  he  had  once 
been.  Religion  has  scarcely  ever  worn  a  form  so  calm  and 
soothing  as  in  his  allegory.  The  feeling  which  predominates 
through  the  whole  •  book  is  a  feeling  of  tenderness  for  weak, 
timid,  and  harassed  minds.  The  character  of  Mr.  Fearing,  of 
Mr.  Feeble-Mind,  of  Mr.  Despondency  and  his  daughter 
Miss  Much-afraid,  the  account  of  poor  Little-faith  who  was 
robbed  by  the  three  thieves  of  his  spending  money,  the 
description  of  Christian's  terror  in  the  dungeons  of  Giant 
Despair  and  in  his  passage  through  the  river,  all  clearly  show 
how  strong  a  sympathy  Bunyan  felt,  after  his  own  mind  had 
become  clear  and  cheerful,  for  persons  afflicted  with  religious 
melancholy. 

Mr.  Southey,  who  has  no  love  for  the  Calvinists,  admits  that 
if  Calvinism  had  never  worn  a  blacker  appearance  than  in 
Bunyan's  works,  it  would  never  have  become  a  term  of 
reproach.  In  fact,  those  works  of  Bunyan  with  which  we 
are  acquainted  are  by  no  means  more  Calvinistic  than  the 
articles  and  homilies  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  moder- 
ation of  his  opinions  on  the  subject  of  predestination  gave 
offence  to  some  zealous  persons.  We  have  seen  an  absurd 
allegory,  the  heroine  of  which  is  named  Hephzibah,  written  by 
some  raving  supralapsarian  preacher  who  was  dissatisfied  with 
the  mild  theology  of  the  Pilgrim 's  Progress.  In  this  foolish 
book,  if  we  recollect  rightly,  the  Interpreter  is  called  the ' 
Enlightener,  and  the  House  Beautiful  is  Castle  Strength.  Mr. 
Southey  tells  us  that  the  Catholics  had  also  their  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  without  a  Giant  Pope,  in  which  the  Interpreter  is  the 
Director,  and  the  House  Beautiful  Grace's  Hall.  It  is  surely  a 
remarkable  proof  of  the  power  of  Bunyan's  genius  that  two 
religious  parties,  both  of  which  regarded  his  opinions  as 
heterodox,  should  have  had  recourse  to  him  for  assistance. 

There  are,  we  think,  some  characters  and  scenes  in  the  Pil- 
grim s  Progress,  which  can  be  fully  comprehended  and  enjoyed 
only  by  persons  familiar  with  the  history  of  the  times  through 
which  Bunyan  lived.  The  character  of  Mr.  Great-heart, 


132  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  guide,  is  an  example.  His  fighting  is,  of  course,  alle- 
gorical ;  but  the  allegory  is  not  strictly  preserved.  He  de- 
livers a  sermon  on  imputed  righteousness  to  his  companions ; 
and,  soon  after,  he  gives  battle  to  Giant  Grim,  who  had  taken 
upon  him  to  back  the  lions.  He  expounds  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah  to  the  household  and  guests  of  Gaius  ;  and 
then  he  sallies  out  to  attack  Slaygood,  who  was  of  the  nature 
of  flesh-eaters,  in  his  den.  These  are  inconsistencies ;  but 
they  are  inconsistencies  which  add,  we  think,  to  the  interest  of 
the  narrative.  We  have  not  the  least  doubt  that  Bunyan  had 
in  view  some  stout  old  Greatheart  of  Naseby  and  Worcester, 
who  prayed  with  his  men  before  he  drilled  them,  who  knew 
the  spiritual  state  of  every  dragoon  in  his  troop,  and  who,  with 
the  praises  of.  God  in  his  mouth  and  a  two-edged  sword  in  his 
hand,  had  turned  to  flight,  on  many  fields  of  battle,  the 
swearing,  drunken  bravoes  of  Rupert  and  Lunsford. 

Every  age  produces  such  men  as  By-ends.  But  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  was  eminently  prolific  of  such  men. 
Mr.  South  ey  thinks  that  the  satire  was  aimed  at  some  partic- 
ular individual ;  and  this  seems  by  no  means  improbable.  At 
all  events,  Bunyan  must  have  known  many  of  those  hypocrites 
who  followed  religion  only  when  religion  walked  in  silver 
slippers,  when  the  sun  shone,  and  when  the  people  applauded. 
Indeed  he  might  have  easily  found  all  the  kindred  of  By-ends 
among  the  public  men  of  his  time.  He  might  have  found 
among  the  peers  my  Lord  Turn-about,  my  Lord  Time-server, 
and  my  Lord  Fair-speech  ;  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Mr. 
Smooth-man,  Mr.  Anything,  and  Mr.  Facing-both-ways ;  nor 
would  "the  parson  of  the  parish,  Mr.  Two-tongues,"  have  been 
wanting.  The  town  of  Bedford  probably  contained  more  than 
one  politician  who,  after  contriving  to  raise  an  estate  by  seek- 
ing the  Lord  during  the  reign  of  the  saints,  contrived  to  keep 
what  he  had  got  by  persecuting  the  saints  during  the  reign  of 
the  strumpets ;  and  more  than  one  priest  who,  during  repeated 
changes  in  the  discipline  and  doctrines  of  the  Church,  had 
remained  constant  to  nothing  but  his  benefice. 


JOHN  BUNYAN  133 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  passages  in  the  Pilgrim 's  Prog- 
ress is  that  in  which  the  proceedings  against  Faithful  are 
described.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  Bunyan  intended  to 
satirize  the  mode  in  which  state  trials  were  conducted  under 
Charles  the  Second.  The  license  given  to  the  witnesses  for 
the  prosecution,  the  shameless  partiality  and  ferocious  insolence 
of  the  judge,  the  precipitancy  and  the  blind  rancour  of  the 
jury,  remind  us  of  those  odious  mummeries  which,  from  the 
Restoration  to  the  Revolution,  were  merely  forms  preliminary 
to  hanging,  drawing,  and  quartering.  Lord  Hate-good  performs 
the  office  of  counsel  for  the  prisoners  as  well  as  Scroggs  him- 
self could  have  performed  it. 

JUDGE.  Thou  runagate,  heretic,  and  traitor,  hast  thou  heard  what  these 
honest  gentlemen  have  witnessed  againt  thee  ? 

FAITHFUL.    May  I  speak  a  few  words  in  my  own  defence  ? 

JUDGE.  Sirrah,  sirrah !  thou  deservest  to  live  no  longer,  but  to  be  slain 
immediately  upon  the  place ;  yet,  that  all  men  may  see  our  gentleness 
towards  thee,  let  us  hear  what  thou,  vile  runagate,  hast  to  say. 

No  person  who  knows  the  state  trials  can  be  at  a  loss  for 
parallel  cases.  Indeed,  write  what  Bunyan  would,  the  baseness 
and  cruelty  of  the  lawyers  of  those  times  "  sinned  up  to  it  still," 
and  even  went  beyond  it.  The  imaginary  trial  of  Faithful, 
before  a  jury  composed  of  personified  vices,  was  just  and 
merciful  when  compared  with  the  real  trial  of  Alice  Lisle 
before  that  tribunal  where  all  the  vices  sat  in  the  person  of 
Jeffreys. 

The  style  of  Bunyan  is  delightful  to  every  reader,  and  inval- 
uable as  a  study  to  every  person  who  wishes  to  obtain  a  wide 
command  over  the  English  language.  The  vocabulary  is  the 
vocabulary  of  the  common  people.  There  is  not  an  expression, 
if  we  except  a  few  technical  terms  of  theology,  which  would 
puzzle  the  rudest  peasant.  We  have  observed  several  pages 
which  do  not  contain  a  single  word  of  more  than  two  syllables. 
Yet  no  writer  has  said  more  exactly  what  he  meant  to  say. 
For  magnificence,  for  pathos,  for  vehement  exhortation,  for 
subtle  disquisition,  for  every  purpose  of  the  poet,  the  orator, 


134  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  the  divine,  this  homely  dialect,,  the  dialect  of  plain  work- 
ing men,  was  perfectly  sufficient.  There  is  no  book  in  our 
literature  on  which  we  would  so  readily  stake  the  fame  of  the 
old  unpolluted  English  language  —  no  book  which  shows  so  well 
how  rich  that  language  is  in  its  own  proper  wealth,  and  how 
little  it  has  been  improved  by  all  that  it  has  borrowed. 

Cowper  said,  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  that  he  dared  not  name 
John  Bunyan  in  his  verse,  for  fear  of  moving  a  sneer.  To  our 
refined  forefathers,  we  suppose,  Lord  Roscommon's  Essay  on 
Translated  Verse,  and  the  Duke  of  Buckinghamshire's  Essay 
on  Poetry,  appeared  to  be  compositions  infinitely  superior  to 
the  allegory  of  the  preaching  tinker.  We  live  in  better  times ; 
and  we  are  not  afraid  to  say  that,  though  there  were  many 
clever  men  in  England  during  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  there  were  only  two  minds  which  possessed  the 
imaginative  faculty  in  a  very  eminent  degree.  One  of  those 
minds  produced  the  Paradise  Lost,  the  other  the  Pilgrim  s 
Progress. 


LORD  CLIVE 

The  Clives  had  been  settled,  ever  since  the  twelfth  century, 
on  an  estate  of  no  great  value,  near  Market-Drayton,  in  Shrop- 
shire. In  the  reign  of  George  the  First,  this  moderate  but 
ancient  inheritance  was  possessed  by  Mr.  Richard  Clive,  who 
seems  to  have  been  a  plain  man  of  no  great  tact  or  capacity. 
He  had  been  bred  to  the  law,  and  divided  his  time  between 
professional  business  and  the  avocations  of  a  small  proprietor. 
He  married  a  lady  from  Manchester,  of  the  name  of  Gaskill, 
and  became  the  father  of  a  very  numerous  family.  His  eldest 
son,  Robert,  the  founder  of  the  British  empire  in  India,  was 
born  at  the  old  seat  of  his  ancestors  on  the  twenty-ninth  of 
September,  1725. 

Some  lineaments  of  the  character  of  the  man  were  early 
discerned  in  the  child.  There  remain  letters  written  by  his 
relations  when  he  was  in  his  seventh  year ;  and  from  these 
letters  it  appears  that,  even  at  that  early  age,  his  strong  will 
and  his  fiery  passions,  sustained  by  a  constitutional  intrepidity 
which  sometimes  seemed  hardly  compatible  with  soundness  of 
mind,  had  begun  to  cause  great  uneasiness  to  his  family. 
"  Fighting,"  says  one  of  his  uncles,  "  to  which  he  is  out  of 
measure  addicted,  gives  his  temper  such  a  fierceness  and 
imperiousness,  that  he  flies  out  on  every  trifling  occasion." 
The  old  people  of  the  neighbourhood  still  remember  to  have 
heard  from  their  parents  how  Bob  Clive  climbed  to  the  top  of 
the  lofty  steeple  of  Market-Drayton,  and  with  what  terror  the 
inhabitants  saw  him  seated  on  a  stone  spout  near  the  summit. 
They  also  relate  how  he  formed  all  the  idle  lads  of  the  town 
into  a  kind  of  predatory  army,  and  compelled  the  shopkeepers 
to  submit  to  a  tribute  of  apples  and  half-pence,  in  consider- 
ation of  which  he  guaranteed  the  security  of  their  windows. 

'35 


136  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  was  sent  from  school  to  school,  making  very  little  prog- 
ress in  his  learning,  and  gaining  for  himself  everywhere  the 
character  of  an  exceedingly  naughty  boy.  One  of  his  masters, 
it  is  said,  was  sagacious  enough  to  prophesy  that  the  idle  lad 
would  make  a  great  figure  in  the  world.  But  the  general 
opinion  seems  to  have  been  that  poor  Robert  was  a  dunce,  if 
not  a  reprobate.  His  family  expected  nothing  good  from  such 
slender  parts  and  such  a  headstrong  temper.  It  is  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  they  gladly  accepted  for  him,  when  he  was  in 
his  eighteenth  year,  a  writership  in  the  service  of  the  East 
India  Company,  and  shipped  him  off  to  make  a  fortune  or  to 
die  of  a  fever  at  Madras.  .  .  . 

Madras,  to  which  Clive  had  been  appointed,  was,  at  this 
time,  perhaps,  the  first  in  importance  of  the  Company's  settle- 
ments. In  the  preceding  century  Fort  St.  George  had  arisen 
on  a  barren  spot  beaten  by  a  raging  surf ;  and  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood a  town,  inhabited  by  many  thousands  of  natives,  had 
sprung  up,  as  towns  spring  up  in  the  East,  with  the  rapidity 
of  the  prophet's  gourd.  There  were  already  in  the  suburbs 
many  white  villas,  each  surrounded  by  its  garden,  whither  the 
wealthy  agents  of  the  Company  retired,  after  the  labours  of 
the  desk  and  the  warehouse,  to  enjoy  the  cool  breeze  which 
springs  up  at  sunset  from  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  The  habits  of 
these  mercantile  grandees  appear  to  have  been  more  profuse, 
luxurious,  and  ostentatious  than  those  of  the  high  judicial  and 
political  functionaries  who  have  succeeded  them.  But  comfort 
was  far  less  understood.  Many  devices  which  now  mitigate 
the  heat  of  the  climate,  preserve  health,  and  prolong  life  were 
unknown.  There  was  far  less  intercourse  with  Europe  than  at 
present.  The  voyage  by  the  Cape,  which  in  our  time  has  often 
been  performed  within  three  months,  was  then  very  seldom 
accomplished  in  six,  and  was  sometimes  protracted  to  more 
than  a  year.  Consequently,  the  Anglo-Indian  was  then  much 
more  estranged  from  his  country,  much  more  addicted  to  Ori- 
ental usages,  and  much  less  fitted  to  mix  in  society  after  his 
return  to  Europe,  than  the  Anglo-Indian  of  the  present  day. 


LORD  CLIVE  137 

Within  the  fort  and  its  precinct,  the  English  exercised,  by 
permission  of  the  native  government,  an  extensive  authority, 
such  as  every  great  Indian  landowner  exercised  within  his  own 
domain.  But  they  had  never  dreamed  of  claiming  independent 
power.  The  surrounding  country  was  ruled  by  the  Nabob  of 
the  Carnatic,  a  deputy  of  the  Viceroy  of  the  Deccan,  com- 
monly called  the  Nizam,  who  was  himself  only  a  deputy  of 
the  mighty  prince  designated  by  our  ancestors  as  the  Great 
Mogul.  Those  names,  once  so  august  and  formidable,  still 
remain.  There  is  still  a  Nabob  of  the  Carfiatic,  who  lives  on 
a  pension  allowed  to  him  by  the  English  out  of  the  revenues 
of  the  provinces  which  his  ancestors  ruled.  There  is  still  a 
Nizam,  whose  capital  is  overawed  by  a  British  cantonment, 
and  to  whom  a  British  resident  gives,  under  the  name  of 
advice,  commands  which  are  not  to  be  disputed.  There  is  still 
a  Mogul,  who  is  permitted  to  play  at  holding  courts  and 
receiving  petitions,  but  who  has  less  power  to  help  or  hurt 
than  the  youngest  civil  servant  of  the  Company. 

Clive's  voyage  was  unusually  tedious  even  for  that  age.  The 
ship  remained  some  months  at  the  Brazils,  where  the  young 
adventurer  picked  up  some  knowledge  of  Portuguese,  and 
spent  all  his  pocket-money.  He  did  not  arrive  in  India  till 
more  than  a  year  after  he  had  left  England.  His  situation  at 
Madras  was  most  painful.  His  funds  were  exhausted.  His 
pay  was  small.  He  had  contracted  debts.  He  was  wretchedly 
lodged,  no  small  calamity  in  a  climate  which  can  be  made 
tolerable  to  an  European  only  by  spacious  and  well-placed 
apartments.  He  had  been  furnished  with  letters  of  recommen- 
dation to  a  gentleman  who  might  have  assisted  him  ;  but  when 
he  landed  at  Fort  St.  George  he  found  that  this  gentleman 
had  sailed  for  England.  The  lad's  shy  and  haughty  disposition 
withheld  him  from  introducing  himself  to  strangers.  He  was 
several  months  in  India  before  he  became  acquainted  with  a 
single  family.  The  climate  affected  his  health  and  spirits. 
His  duties  were  of  a  kind  ill-suited  to  his  ardent  and  daring 
character.  He  pined  for  his  home,  and  in  his  letters  to  his 


138  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

relations  expressed  his  feelings  in  language  softer  and  more 
pensive  than  we  should  have  expected  either  from  the  way- 
wardness of  his  boyhood  or  from  the  inflexible  sternness  of 
his  later  years.  "I  have  not  enjoyed,"  says  he,  "one  happy 
day  since  I  left  my  native  country";  and  again,  "I  must 
confess,  at  intervals,  when  I  think  of  my  dear  native  England, 
it  affects  me  in  a  very  peculiar  manner.  ...  If  I  should 
be  so  far  blest  as  to  revisit  again  my  own  country,  but  more 
especially  Manchester,  the  centre  of  all  my  wishes,  all  that  I 
could  hope  or  desire  for  would  be  presented  before  me  in 
one  view." 

One  solace  he  found  of  the  most  respectable  kind.  The 
Governor  possessed  a  good  library,  and  permitted  Clive  to 
have  access  to  it.  The  young  man  devoted  much  of  his  leisure 
to  reading,  and  acquired  at  this  time  almost  all  the  knowledge 
of  books  that  he  ever  possessed.  As  a  boy  he  had  been  too 
idle,  as  a  man  he  soon  became  too  busy,  for  literary  pursuits. 

But  neither  climate  nor  poverty,  neither  study  nor  the  sor- 
rows of  a  homesick  exile,  could  tame  the  desperate  audacity 
of  his  spirit.  He  behaved  to  his  official  superiors  as  he  had 
behaved  to  his  schoolmasters,  and  was  several  times  in 
danger  of  losing  his  situation.  Twice,  while  residing  in  the 
Writers'  Buildings,  he  attempted  to  destroy  himself  ;  and  twice 
the  pistol  which  he  snapped  at  his  own  head  failed  to  go  off. 
This  circumstance,  it  is  said,  affected  him  as  a  similar  escape 
affected  Wallenstein.  After  satisfying  himself  that  the  pistol 
was  really  well  loaded,  he  burst  forth  into  an  exclamation  that 
surely  he  was  reserved  for  something  great.  .  .  . 

The  circumstances  in  which  he  was  now  placed  naturally 
led  him  to  adopt  a  profession  better  suited  to  his  restless  and 
intrepid  spirit  than  the  business  of  examining  packages  and 
casting  accounts.  He  solicited  and  obtained  an  ensign's  com- 
mission in  the  service  of  the  Company,  and  at  twenty-one 
entered  on  his  military  career.  His  personal  courage,  of  which 
he  had,  while  still  a  writer,  given  signal  proof  by  a  desperate 
duel  with  a  military  bully  who  was  the  terror  of  Fort  St.  David, 


LORD  CLIVE  139 

speedily  made  him  conspicuous  even  among  hundreds  of  brave 
men.  He  soon  began  to  show  in  his  new  calling  other  quali- 
ties which  had  not  before  been  discerned  in  him  —  judgment, 
sagacity,  deference  to  legitimate  authority.  He  distinguished 
himself  highly  in  several  operations  against  the  French,  and 
was  particularly  noticed  by  Major  Lawrence,  who  was  then 
considered  as  the  ablest  British  officer  in  India. 

Clive  had  been  only  a  few  months  in  the  army  when  intel- 
ligence arrived  that  peace  had  been  concluded  between  Great 
Britain  and  France.  Dupleix  was  in  consequence  compelled 
to  restore  Madras  to  the  English  Company ;  and  the  young 
ensign  was  at  liberty  to  resume  his  former  business.  He  did 
indeed  return  for  a  short  time  to  his  desk.  He  again  quitted 
it  in  order  to  assist  Major  Lawrence  in  some  petty  hostilities 
with  the  natives,  and  then  again  returned  to  it.  While  he 
was  thus  wavering  betweeen  a  military  and  a  commercial  life, 
events  took  place  which  decided  his  choice.  The  politics  of 
India  assumed  a  new  aspect.  There  was  peace  between  the 
English  and  French  Crowns ;  but  there  arose  between  the 
English  and  French  Companies  trading  to  the  East  a  war 
most  eventful  and  important  —  a  war  in  which  the  prize  was 
nothing  less  than  the  magnificent  inheritance  of  the  House 
of  Tamerlane. 

The  empire  which  Baber  and  his  Moguls  reared  in  the  six- 
teenth century  was  long  one  of  the  most  extensive  and  splen- 
did in  the  world.  In  no  European  kingdom  was  so  large  a 
population  subject  to  a  single  prince,  or  so  large  a  revenue 
poured  into  the  treasury.  The  beauty  and  magnificence  of 
the  buildings  erected  by  the  sovereigns  of  Hindostan  amazed 
even  travellers  who  had  seen  St.  Peter's.  The  innumerable 
retinues  and  gorgeous  decorations  which  surrounded  the  throne 
of  Delhi  dazzled  even  eyes  which  were  accustomed  to  the  pomp 
of  Versailles.  Some  of  the  great  viceroys  who  held  their  posts 
by  virtue  of  commissions  from  the  Mogul  ruled  as  many  sub- 
jects as  the  King  of  France  or  the  Emperor  of  Germany.  Even 
the  deputies  of  these  deputies  might  well  rank,  as  to  extent  of 


140  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

territory  and  amount  of  revenue,  with  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany  or  the  Elector  of  Saxony. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  great  empire,  powerful 
and  prosperous  as  it  appears  on  a  superficial  view,  was  yet, 
even  in  its  best  days,  far  worse  governed  than  the  worst-gov- 
erned parts  of  Europe  now  are.  The  administration  was  tainted 
with  all  the  vices  of  Oriental  despotism,  and  with  all  the  vices 
inseparable  from  the  domination  of  race  over  race.  The  con- 
flicting pretensions  of  the  princes  of  the  royal  house  produced 
a  long  series  of  crimes  and  public  disasters.  Ambitious  lieu- 
tenants of  the  sovereign  sometimes  aspired  to  independence. 
Fierce  tribes  of  Hindoos,  impatient  of  a  foreign  yoke,  fre- 
quently withheld  tribute,  repelled  the  armies  of  the  govern- 
ment from  the  mountain  fastnesses,  and  poured  down  in  arms 
'on  the  cultivated  plains.  In  spite,  however,  of  much  constant 
maladministration,  in  spite  of  occasional  convulsions  which 
shook  the  whole  frame  of  society,  this  great  monarchy,  on 
the  whole,  retained,  during  some  generations,  an  outward  ap- 
pearance of  unity,  majesty,  and  energy.  But  throughout  the 
long  reign  of  Aurungzebe,  the  state,  notwithstanding  all  that 
the  vigour  and  policy  of  the  prince  could  effect,  was  hastening 
to  dissolution.  After  his  death,  which  took  place  in  the  year 
1707,  the  ruin  was  fearfully  rapid.  Violent  shocks  from  with- 
out co-operated  with  an  incurable  decay  which  was  fast  pro- 
ceeding within  ;  and  in  a  few  years  the  empire  had  undergone 
utter  decomposition.  .  .  . 

Such,  or  nearly  such,  was  the  change  which  passed  on  the 
Mogul  empire  during  the  forty  years  which  followed  the  death 
of  Aurungzebe.  A  succession  of  nominal  sovereigns,  sunk  in 
indolence  and  debauchery,  sauntered  away  life  in  secluded  pal- 
aces, chewing  bang,  fondling  concubines,  and  listening  to  buf- 
foons. A  succession  of  ferocious  invaders  descended  through 
the  western  passes  to  prey  on  the  defenceless  wealth  of  Hindo- 
stan.  A  Persian  conqueror  crossed  the  Indus,  marched  through 
the  gates  of  Delhi,  and  bore  away  in  triumph  those  treasures 
of  which  the  magnificence  had  astounded  Roe  and  Bernier  — 


LORD  CLIVE  141 

the  Peacock  Throne,  on  which  the  richest  jewels  of  Golconda 
had  been  disposed  by  the  most  skilful  hands  of  Europe,  and 
the  inestimable  Mountain  of  Light,  which,  after  many  strange 
vicissitudes,  lately  shone  in  the  bracelet  of  Runjeet  Sing,  and 
is  now  destined  to  adorn  the  hideous  idol  of  Orissa.  The 
Afghan  soon  followed  to  complete  the  work  of  devastation 
which  the  Persian  had  begun.  The  warlike  tribes  of  Raj  poo- 
tana  threw  off  the  Mussulman  yoke.  A  band  of  mercenary 
soldiers  occupied  Rohilcund.  The  Seiks  ruled  on  the  Indus. 
The  Jauts  spread  dismay  along  the  Jumna.  The  highlands 
which  border  on  the  western  sea-coast  of  India  poured  forth 
a  yet  more  formidable  race  —  a  race  which  was  long  the  terror 
of  every  native  power,  and  which,  after  many  desperate  and 
doubtful  struggles,  yielded  only  to  the  fortune  and  genius  of 
England.  It  was  under  the  reign  of  Aurungzebe  that  this 
wild  clan  of  plunderers  first  descended  from  their  mountains ; 
and  soon  after  his  death  every  corner  of  his  wide  empire 
learned  to  tremble  at  the  mighty  name  of  the  Mahrattas. 
Many  fertile  viceroyalties  were  entirely  subdued  by  them. 
Their  dominions  stretched  across  the  peninsula  from  sea  to 
sea.  Mahratta  captains  reigned  at  Poonah,  at  Gualior,  in  Guz- 
erat,  in  Berar,  and  in  Tanjore.  Nor  did  they,  though  they 
had  become  great  sovereigns,  therefore  cease  to  be  freebooters. 
They  still  retained  the  predatory  habits  of  their  forefathers. 
Every  region  which  was  not  subject  to  their  rule  was  wasted 
by  their  incursions.  Wherever  their  kettle-drums  were  heard, 
the  peasant  threw  his  bag  of  rice  on  his  shoulder,  hid  his 
small  savings  in  his  girdle,  and  fled  with  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren to  the  mountains  or  the  jungles,  to  the  milder  neighbour- 
hood of  the  hyaena  and  the  tiger.  Many  provinces  redeemed 
their  harvests  by  the  payment  of  an  annual  ransom.  Even 
the  wretched  phantom  who  still  bore  the  imperial  title  stooped 
to  pay  this  ignominious  blackmail.  The  camp-fires  of  one 
rapacious  leader  were  seen  from  the  walls  of  the  palace  of 
Delhi.  Another,  at  the  head  of  his  innumerable  cavalry,  de- 
scended year  after  year  on  the  rice-fields  of  Bengal.  Even 


142  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  European  factors  trembled  for  their  magazines.  Less  than 
a  hundred  years  ago,  it  was  thought  necessary  to  fortify  Cal- 
cutta against  the  horsemen  of  Berar ;  and  the  name  of  the 
Mahratta  ditch  still  preserves  the  memory  of  the  danger. 

Wherever  the  viceroys  of  the  Mogul  retained  authority  they 
became  sovereigns.  They  might  still  acknowledge  in  words  the 
superiority  of  the  house  of  Tamerlane  ;  as  a  Count  of  Flanders 
or  a  Duke  of  Burgundy  might  have  acknowledged  the  su- 
periority of  the  most  helpless  driveller  among  the  later  Carlo- 
vingians.  They  might  occasionally  send  to  their  titular 
sovereign  a  complimentary  present,  or  solicit  from  him  a  title 
of  honour.  In  truth,  however,  they  were  no  longer  lieutenants 
removable  at  pleasure,  but  independent  hereditary  princes.  In 
this  way  originated  those  great  Mussulman  houses  which 
formerly  ruled  Bengal  and  the  Carnatic,  and  those  which  still, 
though  in  a  state  of  vassalage,  exercise  some  of  the  powers  of 
royalty  at  Lucknow  and  Hyderabad. 

In  what  was  this  confusion  to  end  ?  Was  the  strife  to 
continue  during  centuries  ?  Was  it  to  terminate  in  the  rise  of 
another  great  monarchy  ?  Was  the  Mussulman  or  the  Mahratta 
to  be  the  Lord  of  India  ?  Was  another  Baber  to  descend  from 
the  mountajns,  and  to  lead  the  hardy  tribes  of  Cabul  and 
Khorassan  against  a  wealthier  and  less  warlike  race  ?  None  of 
these  events  seemed  improbable.  But  scarcely  any  man,  how- 
ever sagacious,  would  have  thought  it  possible  that  a  trading 
company,  separated  from  India  by  fifteen  thousand  miles  of  sea, 
and  possessing  in  India  only  a  few  acres  for  purposes  of 
commerce,  would,  in  less  than  a  hundred  years,  spread  its 
empire  from  Cape  Comorin  to  the  eternal  snow  of  the 
Himalayas ;  would  compel  Mahratta  and  Mahommedan  to 
forget  their  mutual  feuds  in  common  subjection ;  would  tame 
down  even  those  wild  races  which  had  resisted  the  most 
powerful  of  the  Moguls ;  and,  having  united  under  its  laws  a 
hundred  millions  of  subjects,  would  carry  its  victorious  arms 
far  to  the  east  of  the  Burrampooter  and  far  to  the  west  of  the 
Hydaspes,  dictate  terms  of  peace  at  the  gates  of  Ava,  and  seat 
its  vassal  on  the  throne  of  Candahar. 


LORD  CLIVE  143 

The  man  who  first  saw  that  it  was  possible  to  found  an 
European  empire  on  the  ruins  of  the  Mogul  monarchy  was 
Dupleix.  His  restless,  capacious,  and  inventive  mind  had 
formed  this  scheme  at  a  time  when  the  ablest  servants  of  the 
English  Company  were  busied  only  about  invoices  and  bills  of 
lading.  Nor  had  he  only  proposed  to  himself  the  end.  He 
had  also  a  just  and  distinct  view  of  the  means  by  which  it  was 
to  be  attained.  He  clearly  saw  that  the  greatest  force  which 
the  princes  of  India  could  bring  into  the  field  would  be  no 
match  for  a  small  body  of  men  trained  in  the  discipline  and 
guided  by  the  tactics  of  the  West.  He  saw  also  that  the 
natives  of  India  might,  under  European  commanders,  be  formed 
into  armies  such  as  Saxe  or  Frederic  would  be  proud  to 
command.  He  was  perfectly  aware  that  the  most  easy  and 
convenient  way  in  which  an  European  adventurer  could  exercise 
sovereignty  in  India  was  to  govern  the  motions,  and  to  speak 
through  the  mouth,  of  some  glittering  puppet  dignified  by  the 
title  of  Nabob  or  Nizam.  The  arts  both  of  war  and  policy, 
which  a  few  years  later  were  employed  with  such  signal  success 
by  the  English,  were  first  understood  and  practised  by  this 
ingenious  and  aspiring  Frenchman. 

The  situation  of  India  was  such  that  scarcely  any  aggression 
could  be  without  a  pretext,  either  in  old  laws  or  in  recent 
practice.  All  rights  were  in  a  state  of  utter  uncertainty ;  and 
the  Europeans  who  took  part  in  the  disputes  of  the  natives 
confounded  the  confusion  by  applying  to  Asiatic  politics  the 
public  law  of  the  West  and  analogies  drawn  from  the  feudal 
system.  If  it  was  convenient  to  treat  a  Nabob  as  an  inde- 
pendent prince,  there  was  an  excellent  plea  for  doing  so.  He 
was  independent  in  fact.  If  it  was  convenient  to  treat  him  as 
a  mere  deputy  of  the  Court  of  Delhi,  there  was  no  difficulty ; 
for  he  was  so  in  theory.  If  it  was  convenient  to  consider  his 
office  as  an  hereditary  dignity,  or  as  a  dignity  held  during  life 
only,  or  as  a  dignity  held  only  during  the  good  pleasure  of  the 
Mogul,  arguments  and  precedents  might  be  found  for  every 
one  of  those  views.  The  party  who  had  the  heir  of  Baber  in 
their  hands  represented  him  as  the  undoubted,  the  legitimate, 


144  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 


i 


the  absolute  sovereign,  whom  all  subordinate  authorities  were 
bound  to  obey.  The  party  against  whom  his  name  was  used 
did  not  want  plausible  pretexts  for  maintaining  that  the  empire 
was  in  fact  dissolved,  and  that  though  it  might  be  decent  to 
treat  the  Mogul  with  respect,  as  a  venerable  relic  of  an  order 
of  things  which  had  passed  away,  it  was  absurd  to  regard  him 
as  the  real  master  of  Hindostan. 

In  the  year  1748,  died  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  new 
masters  of  India,  the  great  Nizam  al  Mulk,  Viceroy  of  the 
Deccan.  His  authority  descended  to  his  son,  Nazir  Jung.  Of 
the  provinces  subject  to  this  high  functionary,  the  Carnatic  was 
the  wealthiest  and  the  most  extensive.  It  was  governed  by 
an  ancient  Nabob,  whose  name  the  English  corrupted  into 
Anaverdy  Khan. 

But  there  were  pretenders  to  the  government  both  of  the 
viceroyalty  and  of  the  subordinate  province.  Mirzapha  Jung,  a 
grandson  of  Nizam  al  Mulk,  appeared  as  the  competitor  of 
Nazir  Jung.  Chunda  Sahib,  son-in-law  of  a  former  Nabob  of 
the  Carnatic,  disputed  the  title  of  Anaverdy  Khan.  In  the  un- 
settled state  of  Indian  law  it  was  easy  for  both  Mirzapha  Jung 
and  Chunda  Sahib  to  make  out  something  like  a  claim  of  right. 
In  a  society  altogether  disorganized,  they  had  no  difficulty  in 
finding  greedy  adventurers  to  follow  their  standards.  They 
united  their  interests,  invaded  the  Carnatic,  and  applied  for 
assistance  to  the  French,  whose  fame. had  been  raised  by  their 
success  against  the  English  in  a  recent  war  on  the  coast  of 
Coromandel. 

Nothing  could  have  happened  more  pleasing  to  the  subtle 
and  ambitious  Dupleix.  To  make  a  Nabob  of  the  Carnatic,  to 
make  a  Viceroy  of  the  Deccan,  to  rule  under  their  names  the 
whole  of  Southern  India  —  this  was,  indeed,  an  attractive  pros- 
pect. He  allied  himself  with  the  pretenders,  and  sent  four  hun- 
dred French  soldiers,  and  two  thousand  sepoys,  disciplined  after 
the  European  fashion,  to  the  assistance  of  his  confederates. 
A  battle  was  fought.  The  French  distinguished  themselves 
greatly.  Anaverdy  Khan  was  defeated  and  slain.  His  son, 


LORD  CLIVE  145 

Mahommed  Ali,  who  was  afterwards  well  known  in  England  as 
the  Nabob  of  Arcot,  and  who  owes  to  the  eloquence  of 'Burke 
a  most  unenviable  immortality,  fled  with  a  scanty  remnant  of 
his  army  to  Trichinopoly ;  and  the  conquerors  became  at  once 
masters  of  almost  every  part  of  the  Carnatic. 

This  was  but  the  beginning  of  the  greatness  of  Dupleix. 
After  some  months  of  fighting,  negotiation,  and  intrigue,  his 
ability  and  good  fortune  seemed  to  have  prevailed  everywhere. 
Nazir  Jung  perished  by  the  hands  of  his  own  followers ; 
Mirzapha  Jung  was  master  of  the  Deccan ;  and  the  triumph 
of  French  arms  and  French  policy  was  complete.  At  Pondi- 
cherry  all  was  exultation  and  festivity.  Salutes  were  fired 
from  the  batteries,  and  Te  Deum  sung  in  the  churches.  The  new 
Nizam  came  thither  to  visit  his  allies  ;  and  the  ceremony  of  his 
installation  was  performed  there  with  great  pomp.  Dupleix, 
dressed  in  the  garb  worn  by  Mahommedans  of  the  highest 
rank,  entered  the  town  in  the  same  palanquin  with  the  Nizam, 
and,  in  the  pageant  which  followed,  took  precedence  of  all 
the  court.  He  was  declared  Governor  of  India  from  the  river 
Krishna  to  Cape  Comorin,  a  country  about  as  large  as  France, 
with  authority  superior  even  to  that  of  Chunda  Sahib.  He 
was  intrusted  with  the  command  of  seven  thousand  cavalry. 
It  was  announced  that  no  mint  would  be  suffered  to  exist  in  the 
Carnatic  except  that  at  Pondicherry.  A  large  portion  of  the 
treasures  which  former  Viceroys  of  the  Deccan  had  accumu- 
lated had  found  its  way  into  the  coffers  of  the  French  gov- 
ernor. It  was  rumoured  that  he  had  received  two  hundred 
thousand  pounds  sterling  in  money,  besides  many  valuable 
jewels.  In  fact,  there  could  scarcely  be  any  limit  to  his  gains. 
He  now  ruled  thirty  millions  of  people  with  almost  absolute 
power.  No  honour  or  emolument  could  be  obtained  from  the 
government  but  by  his  intervention.  No  petition,  unless 
signed  by  him,  was  perused  by  the  Nizam. 

Mirzapha  Jung  survived  his  elevation  only  a  few  months. 
But  another  prince  of  the  same  house  was  raised  to  the  throne 
by  French  influence,  and  ratified  all  the  promises  of  his 


146  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

predecessor.  Dupleix  was  now  the  greatest  potentate  in  India. 
His  countrymen  boasted  that  his  name  was  mentioned  with 
awe  even  in  the  chambers  of  the  palace  of  Delhi.  The  native 
population  looked  with  amazement  on  the  progress  which,  in 
the  short  space  of  four  years,  an  European  adventurer  had 
made  towards  dominion  in  Asia.  Nor  was  the  vainglorious 
Frenchman  content  with  the  reality  of  power.  He  loved  to 
display  his  greatness  with  arrogant  ostentation  before  the  eyes 
of  his  subjects  and  of  his  rivals.  Near  the  spot  where  his 
policy  had  obtained  its  chief  triumph  —  by  the  fall  of  Nazir 
Jung  and  the  elevation  of  Mirzapha  —  he  determined  to  erect  a 
column,  on  the  four  sides  of  which  four  pompous  inscriptions^ 
in  four  languages,  should  proclaim  his  glory  to  all  the  nations 
of  the  East.  Medals  stamped  with  emblems  of  his  successes 
were  buried  beneath  the  foundations  of  this  stately  pillar,  and 
round  it  arose  a  town  bearing  the  haughty  name  of  Dupleix 
Fatihabad,  which  is,  being  interpreted,  the  City  of  the  Victory 
of  Dupleix. 

The  English  had  made  some  feeble  and  irresolute  attempts 
to  stop  the  rapid  and  brilliant  career  of  the  rival  Company, 
and  continued  to  recognize  Mahommed  AH  as  Nabob  of  the 
Carnatic.  But  the  dominions  of  Mahommed  Ali  consisted  of 
Trichinopoly  alone ;  and  Trichinopoly  was  now  invested  by 
Chunda  Sahib  and  his  French  auxiliaries.  To  raise  the  siege 
seemed  impossible.  The  small  force  which  was  then  at 
Madras  had  no  commander.  Major  Lawrence  had  returned 
to  England ;  and  not  a  single  officer  of  established  character 
remained  in  the  settlement.  The  natives  had  learned  to  look 
with  contempt  on  the  mighty  nation  which  was  soon  to  con- 
quer and  to  rule  them.  They  had  seen  the  French  colours 
flying  on  Fort  St.  George ;  they  had  seen  the  chiefs  of  the 
English  factory  led  in  triumph  through  the  streets  of  Pondi- 
cherry;  they  had  seen  the  arms  and  counsels  of  Dupleix 
everywhere  successful,  while  the  opposition  which  the  author- 
ities of  Madras  had  made  to  his  progress  had  served  only  to 
expose  their  own  weakness  and  to  heighten  his  glory.  At 


LORD  CLIVE  147 

this  moment,  the  valour  and  genius  of  an  obscure  English 
youth  suddenly  turned  the  tide  of  fortune. 

Clive  was  now  twenty-five  years  old.  After  hesitating  for 
some  time  between  a  military  and  a  commercial  life,  he  had  at 
length  been  placed  in  a  post  which  partook  of  both  characters 
—  that  of  commissary  to  the  troops,  with  the  rank  of  captain. 
The  present  emergency  called  forth  all  his  powers.  He  repre- 
sented to  his  superiors  that,  unless  some  vigorous  effort  were 
made,  Trichinopoly  would  fall,  the  house  of  Anaverdy  Khan 
would  perish,  and  the  French  would  become  the  real  masters 
of  the  whole  peninsula  of  India.  It  was  absolutely  necessary 
tt>  strike  some  daring  blow.  If  an  attack  were  made  on 
Arcot,  the  capital  of  the  Carnatic  and  the  favourite  residence 
of  the  Nabobs,  it  was  not  impossible  that  the  siege  of  Trichi- 
nopoly would  be  raised.  The  heads  of  the  English  settlement, 
now  thoroughly  alarmed  by  the  success  of  Dupleix,  and  appre- 
hensive that,  in  the  event  of  a  new  war  between  France  and 
Great  Britain,  Madras  would  be  instantly  taken  and  destroyed, 
approved  of  Clive's  plan,  and  intrusted  the  execution  of  it  to 
himself.  The  young  captain  was  put  at  the  head  of  two 
hundred  English  soldiers,  and  three  hundred  sepoys,  armed 
and  disciplined  after  the  European  fashion.  Of  the  eight 
officers  who  commanded  this  little  force  under  him,  only  two 
had  ever  been  in  action,  and  four  of  the  eight  were  factors  of 
the  Company,  whom  Clive's  example  had  induced  to  offer 
their  services.  The  weather  was  stormy;  but  Clive  pushed 
on,  through  thunder,  lightning,  and  rain,  to  the  gates  of 
Arcot.  The  garrison,  in  a  panic,  evacuated  the  fort,  and  the 
English  entered  it  without  a  blow. 

.  But  Clive  well  knew  that  he  should  not  be  suffered  to  retain 
undisturbed  possession  of  his  conquest.  He  instantly  began 
to  collect  provisions,  to  throw  up  works,  and  to  make  prep- 
arations for  sustaining  a  siege.  The  garrison,  which  had  fled 
at  his  approach,  had  now  recovered  from  its  dismay,  and, 
having  been  swelled  by  large  reinforcements  from  the  neigh- 
bourhood to  a  force  of  three  thousand  men,  encamped  close 


148  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  the  town.  At  dead  of  night,  Clive  marched  out  of  the  fort, 
attacked  the  camp  by  surprise,  slew  great  numbers,  dispersed 
the  rest,  and  returned  to  his  quarters  without  having  lost  a 
single  man. 

The  intelligence  of  these  events  was  soon  carried  to 
Chunda  Sahib,  who,  with  his  French  allies,  was  besieging 
Trichinopoly.  He  immediately  detached  four  thousand  men 
from  his  camp  and  sent  them  to  Arcot.  They  were  speedily 
joined  by  the  remains  of  the  force  which  Clive  had  lately 
scattered.  They  were  further  strengthened  by  two  thousand 
men  from  Vellore,  and  by  a  still  more  important  reinforce- 
ment of  a  hundred  and  fifty  French  soldiers  whom  Dupleix 
despatched  from  Pondicherry.  The  whole  of  his  army,  amount- 
ing to  about  ten  thousand  men,  was  under  the  command  of 
Rajah  Sahib,  son  of  Chunda  Sahib. 

Rajah  Sahib  proceeded  to  invest  the  fort  of  Arcot,  which 
seemed  quite  incapable  of  sustaining  a  siege.  The  walls  were 
ruinous,  the  ditches  dry,  the  ramparts  too  narrow  to  admit  the 
guns,  the  battlements  too  low  to  protect  the  soldiers.  The  little 
garrison  had  been  greatly  reduced  by  casualties.  It  now  con- 
sisted of  a  hundred  and  twenty  Europeans  and  two  hundred 
sepoys.  Only  four  officers  were  left ;  the  stock  of  provisions 
was  scanty ;  and  the  commander,  who  had  to  conduct  the 
defence  under  circumstances  so  discouraging,  was  a  young 
man  of  five-and-twenty,  who  had  been  bred  a  bookkeeper. 

During  fifty  days  the  siege  went  on.  During  fifty  days  the 
young  captain  maintained  the  defence  with  a  firmness,  vigi- 
lance, and  ability  which  would  have  done  honour  to  the  oldest 
marshal  in  Europe.  The  breach,  however,  increased  day  by 
day.  The  garrison  began  to  feel  the  pressure  of  hunger. 
Under  such  circumstances,  any  troops  so  scantily  provided 
with  officers  might  have  been  expected  to  show  signs  of  insub- 
ordination ;  and  the  danger  was  peculiarly  great  in  a  force  com- 
posed of  men  differing  widely  from  each  other  in  extraction, 
colour,  language,  manners,  and  religion.  But  the  devotion  of 
the  little  band  to  its  chief  surpassed  anything  that  is  related 


LORD  CLIVE  149 

of  the  Tenth  Legion  of  Caesar,  or  of  the  Old  Guard  of 
Napoleon.  The  sepoys  came  to  Clive,  not  to  complain  of  their 
scanty  fare,  but  to  propose  that  all  the  grain  should  be  given 
to  the  Europeans,  who  required  more  nourishment  than  the 
natives  of  Asia.  The  thin  gruel,  they  said,  which  was  strained 
away  from  the  rice  would  suffice  for  themselves.  History  con- 
tains no  more  touching  instance  of  military  fidelity  or  of  the 
influence  of  a  commanding  mind. 

An  attempt  made  by  the  government  of  Madras  to  relieve 
the  place  had  failed.  But  there  was  hope  from  another  quarter. 
A  body  of  six  thousand  Mahrattas,  half  soldiers,  half  robbers, 
under  the  command  of  a  chief  named  Morari  Row,  had  been 
hired  to  assist  Mahommed  Ali ;  but  thinking  the  French 
power  irresistible,  and  the  triumph  of  Chunda  Sahib  certain, 
they  had  hitherto  remained  inactive  on  the  frontiers  of  the 
Carnatic.  The  fame  of  the  defence  of  Arcot  roused  them 
from  their  torpor.  Morari  Row  declared  that  he  had  never 
before  believed  that  Englishmen  could  fight,  but  that  he 
would  willingly  help  them  since  he  saw  that  they  had  spirit 
to  help  themselves.  Rajah  Sahib  learned  that  the  Mahrattas 
were  in  motion.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to  be  expeditious. 
He  first  tried  negotiation.  He  offered  large  bribes  to  Clive, 
which  were  rejected  with  scorn.  He  vowed  that,  if  his  pro- 
posals were  not  accepted,  he  would  instantly  storm  the  fort, 
and  put  every  man  in  it  to  the  sword.  Clive  told  him  in 
reply,  with  characteristic  haughtiness,  that  his  father  was  an 
usurper,  that  his  army  was  a  rabble,  and  that  he  would  do  well 
to  think  twice  before  he  sent  such  poltroons  into  a  breach 
defended  by  English  soldiers. 

Rajah  Sahib  determined  to  storm  the  fort.  The  day  was 
well  suited  to  a  bold  military  enterprise.  It  was  the  great 
Mahommedan  festival  which  is  sacred  to  the  memory  of 
Hosein,  the  son  of  Ali.  The  history  of  Islam  contains  nothing 
more  touching  than  the  event  which  gave  rise  to  that  solem- 
nity. The  mournful  legend  relates  how  the  chief  of  the  Fati- 
mites,  when  all  his  brave  followers  had  perished  round  him, 


150  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

drank  his  latest  draught  of  water,  and  uttered  his  latest  prayer ; 
how  the  assassins  carried  his  head  in  triumph  ;  how  the  tyrant 
smote  the  lifeless  lips  with  his  staff ;  and  how  a  few  old  men 
recollected  with  tears  that  they  had  seen  those  lips  pressed  to 
the  lips  of  the  Prophet  of  God.  After  the  lapse  of  near  twelve 
centuries,  the  recurrence  of  this  solemn  season  excites  the 
fiercest  and  saddest  emotions  in  the  bosoms  of  the  devout 
Moslems  of  India.  They  work  themselves  up  to  such  agonies 
of  rage  and  lamentation  that  some,  it  is  said,  have  given  up 
the  ghost  from  the  mere  effect  of  mental  excitement.  They 
believe  that  whoever,  during  this  festival,  falls  in  arms  against 
the  infidels  atones  by  his  death  for  all  the  sins  of  his  life,  and 
passes  at  once  to  the  garden  of  the  Houris.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Rajah  Sahib  determined  to  assault  Arcot.  Stimu- 
lating drugs  were  employed  to  aid  the  effect  of  religious  zeal, 
and  the  besiegers,  drunk  with  enthusiasm,  drunk  with  bang, 
rushed  furiously  to  the  attack. 

Clive  had  received  secret  intelligence  of  the  design,  had 
made  his  arrangements,  and,  exhausted  by  fatigue,  had  thrown 
himself  on  his  bed.  He  was  awakened  by  the  alarm,  and  was 
instantly  at  his  post.  The  enemy  advanced,  driving  before 
them  elephants  whose  foreheads  were  armed  with  iron  plates. 
It  was  expected  that  the  gates  would  yield  to  the  shock  of 
these  living  battering-rams.  But  the  huge  beasts  no  sooner 
felt  the  English  musket-balls  than  they  turned  round,  and 
rushed  furiously  away,  trampling  on  the  multitude  which  had 
urged  them  forward.  A  raft  was  launched  on  the  water  which 
filled  one  part  of  the  ditch.  Clive,  perceiving  that  his  gunners 
at  that  post  did  not  understand  their  business,  took  the  man- 
agement of  a  piece  of  artillery  himself,  and  cleared  the  raft 
in  a  few  minutes.  When  the  moat  was  dry,  the  assailants 
mounted  with  great  boldness ;  but  they  were  received  with  a 
fire  so  heavy  and  so  well-directed,  that  it  soon  quelled  the 
courage  even  of  fanaticism  and  of  intoxication.  The  rear 
ranks  of  the  English  kept  the  front  ranks  supplied  with  a 
constant  succession  of  loaded  muskets,  and  every  shot  told  on 


LORD  CLIVE  151 

the  living  mass  below.  After  three  desperate  onsets,  the 
besiegers  retired  behind  the  ditch. 

The  struggle  lasted  about  an  hour.  Four  hundred  of  the 
assailants  fell.  The  garrison  lost  only  five  or  six  men.  The 
besieged  passed  an  anxious  night,  looking  for  a  renewal  of 
the  attack.  But  when  the  day  broke,  the  enemy  were  no  more 
to  be  seen.  They  had  retired,  leaving  to  the  English  several 
guns  and  a  large  quantity  of  ammunition. 

The  news  was  received  at  Fort  St.  George  with  transports 
of  joy  and  pride.  Clive  was  justly  regarded  as  a  man  equal 
to  any  command.  Two  hundred  English  soldiers  and  seven 
hundred  sepoys  were  sent  to  him,  and  with  this  force  he 
instantly  commenced  offensive  operations.  He  took  the  fort 
of  Timery,  effected  a  junction  with  a  division  of  Morari  Row's 
army,  and  hastened  by  forced  marches  to  attack  Rajah  Sahib, 
who  was  at  the  head  of  about  five  thousand  men,  of  whom 
three  hundred  were  French.  The  action  was  sharp ;  but  Clive 
gained  a  complete  victory.  The  military  chest  of  Rajah  Sahib 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  conquerors.  Six  hundred  sepoys 
who  had  served  in  the  enemy's  army  came  over  to  Clive's 
quarters  and  were  taken  into  the  British  service.  Conjeveram 
surrendered  without  a  blow.  The  governor  of  Arnee  deserted 
Chunda  Sahib,  and  recognized  the  title  of  Mahommed  Ali.  .  .  . 

The  great  commercial  companies  of  Europe  had  long 
possessed  factories  in  Bengal.  The  French  were  settled,  as 
they  still  are,  at  Chandernagore  on  the  Hoogly.  Higher  up 
the  stream  the  Dutch  held  Chinsurah.  Nearer  to  the  sea,  the 
English  had  built  Fort  William.  A  church  and  ample  ware- 
houses rose  in  the  vicinity.  A  row  of  spacious  houses,  belonging 
to  the  chief  factors  of  the  East  India  Company,  lined  the  banks 
of  the  river ;  and  in  the  neighbourhood  had  sprung  up  a  large 
and  busy  native  town,  where  some  Hindoo  merchants  of  great 
opulence  had  fixed  their  abode.  But  the  tract  now  covered 
by  the  palaces  of  Chowringhee  contained  only  a  few  miserable 
huts  thatched  with  straw.  A  jungle,  abandoned  to  water-fowl 


152  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  alligators,  covered  the  site  of  the  present  Citadel,  and  the 
Course,  which  is  now  daily  crowded  at  sunset  with  the  gayest 
equipages  of  Calcutta.  For  the  ground  on  which  the  settlement 
stood,  the  English,  like  other  great  landholders,  paid  rent  to 
the  Government ;  and  they  were,  like  other  great  landholders, 
permitted  to  exercise  a  certain  jurisdiction  within  their  domain. 

The  great  province  of  Bengal,  together  with  Orissa  and 
Bahar,  had  long  been  governed  by  a  viceroy,  whom  the  English 
called  Aliverdy  Khan,  and  who,  like  the  other  viceroys  of  the 
Mogul,  had  become  virtually  independent.  He  died  in  1756, 
and  the  sovereignty  descended  to  his  grandson,  a  youth  under 
twenty  years  of  age,  who  bore  the  name  of  Surajah  Dowlah. 
Oriental  despots  are  perhaps  the  worst  class  of  human  beings ; 
and  this  unhappy  boy  was  one  of  the  worst  specimens  of  his 
class.  His  understanding  was  naturally  feeble,  and  his  temper 
naturally  unamiable.  His  education  had  been  such  as  would 
have  enervated  even  a  vigorous  intellect  and  perverted  even  a 
generous  disposition.  He  was  unreasonable,  because  nobody 
ever  dared  to  reason  with  him ;  and  selfish,  because  he  had 
never  been  made  to  feel  himself  dependent  on  the  goodwill  of 
others.  Early  debauchery  had  unnerved  his  body  and  his 
mind.  He  indulged  immoderately  in  the  use  of  ardent  spirits, 
which  inflamed  his  weak  brain  almost  to  madness.  His 
chosen  companions  were  flatterers  sprung  from  the  dregs  of 
the  people,  and  recommended  by  nothing  but  buffoonery  and 
servility.  It  is  said  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  last  stage  of 
human  depravity,  when  cruelty  becomes  pleasing  for  its  own 
sake ;  when  the  sight  of  pain  as  pain,  where  no  advantage  is  to 
be  gained,  no  offence  punished,  no  danger  averted,  is  an  agree- 
able excitement.  It  had  early  been  his  amusement  to  torture 
beasts  and  birds ;  and  when  he  grew  up,  he  enjoyed  with  still 
keener  relish  the  misery  of  his  fellow-creatures. 

From  a  child  Surajah  Dowlah  had  hated  the  English.  It  was 
his  whim  to  do  so ;  and  his  whims  were  never  opposed.  He 
had  also  formed  a  very  exaggerated  notion  of  the  wealth  which 
might  be  obtained  by  plundering  them ;  and  his  feeble  and 


LORD  CLIVE  153 

uncultivated  mind  was  incapable  of  perceiving  that  the  riches 
of  Calcutta,  had  they  been  even  greater  than  he  imagined, 
would  not  compensate  him  for  what  he  must  lose  if  the 
European  trade,  of  which  Bengal  was  a  chief  seat,  should  be 
driven  by  his  violence  to  some  other  quarter.  Pretexts  for  a 
quarrel  were  readily  found.  The  English,  in  expectation  of  a 
war  with  Erance,  had  begun  to  fortify  their  settlement  without 
special  permission  from  the  Nabob.  A  rich  native,  whom  he 
longed  to  plunder,  had  taken  refuge  at  Calcutta,  and  had  not 
been  delivered  up.  On  such  grounds  as  these  Surajah  Dowlah 
marched  with  a  great  army  against  Fort  William. 

The  servants  of  the  Company  at  Madras  had  been  forced  by 
Dupleix  to  become  statesmen  and  soldiers.  Those  in  Bengal 
were  still  mere  traders,  and  were  terrified  and  bewildered  by 
the  approaching  danger.  The  Governor,  who  had  heard  much 
of  Surajah  Dowlah's  cruelty,  was  frightened  out  of  his  wits, 
jumped  into  a  boat,  and  took  refuge  in  the  nearest  ship.  The 
military  commandant  thought  that  he  could  not  do  better  than 
follow  so  good  an  example.  The  fort  was  taken  after  a  feeble 
resistance  ;  and  great  numbers  of  the  English  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  conquerors.  The  Nabob  seated  himself  with  regal  pomp 
in  the  principal  hall  of  the  factory,  and  ordered  Mr.  Holwell, 
the  first  in  rank  among  the  prisoners,  to  be  brought  before 
him.  His  Highness  talked  about  the  insolence  of  the  English, 
and  grumbled  at  the  smallness  of  the  treasure  which  he  had 
found ;  but  promised  to  spare  their  lives,  and  retired  to  rest. 

Then  was  committed  that  great  crime,  memorable  for  its 
singular  atrocity,  memorable  for  the  tremendous  retribution  by 
which  it  was  followed.  The  English  captives  were  left  to  the 
mercy  of  the  guards,  and  the  guards  determined  to  secure 
them  for  the  night  in  the  prison  of  the  garrison,  a  chamber 
known  by  the  fearful  name  of  the  Black  Hole.  Even  for  a 
single  European  malefactor  that  dungeon  would,  in  such  a 
climate,  have  been  too  close  and  narrow.  The  space  was  only 
twenty  feet  square.  The  air-holes  were  small  and  obstructed. 
It  was  the  summer  solstice,  the  season  when  the  fierce  heat  of 


154  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Bengal  can  scarcely  be  rendered  tolerable  to  natives  of  Eng- 
land by  lofty  halls  and  by  the  constant  waving  of  fans.  The 
number  of  the  prisoners  was  one  hundred  and  forty-six.  When 
they  were  ordered  to  enter  the  cell,  they  imagined  that  the 
soldiers  were  joking ;  and,  being  in  high  spirits  on  account  of 
the  promise  of  the  Nabob  to  spare  their  lives,  they  laughed 
and  jested  at  the  absurdity  of  the  notion.  They  soon  dis- 
covered their  mistake.  They  expostulated ;  they  entreated ; 
but  in  vain.  The  guards  threatened  to  cut  down  all  who  hesi- 
tated. The  captives  were  driven  into  the  cell  at  the  point  of  the 
sword,  and  the  door  was  instantly  shut  and  locked  upon  them. 
Nothing  in  history  or  fiction,  not  even  the  story  which 
Ugolino  told  in  the  sea  of  everlasting  ice,  after  he  had  wiped 
his  bloody  lips  on  the  scalp  of  his  murderer,  approaches  the 
horrors  which  were  recounted  by  the  few  survivors  of  that 
night.  They  cried  for  mercy.  They  strove  to  burst  the  door. 
Holwell  who,  even  in  that  extremity,  retained  some  presence 
of  mind,  offered  large  bribes  to  the  gaolers.  But  the  answer 
was  that  nothing  could  be  done  without  the  Nabob's  orders, 
that  the  Nabob  was  asleep,  and  that  he  would  be  angry  if  any- 
body woke  him.  Then  the  prisoners  went  mad  with  despair. 
They  trampled  each  other  down,  fought  for  the  places  at  the 
windows,  fought  for  the  pittance  of  water  with  which  the  cruel 
mercy  of  the  murderers  mocked  their  agonies,  raved,  prayed, 
blasphemed,  implored  the  guards  to  fire  among  them.  The 
gaolers  in  the  meantime  held  lights  to  the  bars,  and  shouted 
with  laughter  at  the  frantic  struggles  of  their  victims.  At  length 
the  tumult  died  away  in  low  gaspings  and  meanings.  The  day 
broke.  The  Nabob  had  slept  off  his  debauch,  and  permitted 
the  door  to  be  opened.  But  it  was  some  time  before  the 
soldiers  could  make  a  lane  for  the  survivors,  by  piling  up  on 
each  side  the  heaps  of  corpses  on  which  the  burning  climate 
had  already  begun  to  do  its  loathsome  work.  When  at  length 
a  passage  was  made,  twenty-three  ghastly  figures,  such  as  their 
own  mothers  would  not  have  known,  staggered  one  by  one  out 
of  the  charnel-house.  A  pit  was  instantly  dug.  The  dead 


LORD  CLIVE  155 

bodies,  a  hundred  and  twenty-three  in  number,  were  flung  into 
it  promiscuously  and  covered  up. 

But  these  things  —  which,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than 
eighty  years,  cannot  be  told  or  read  without  horror  —  awakened 
neither  remorse  nor  pity  in  the  bosom  of  the  savage  Nabob. 
He  inflicted  no  punishment  on  the  murderers.  He  showed  no 
tenderness  to  the  survivors.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  from 
whom  nothing  was  to  be  got,  were  suffered  to  depart ;  but 
those  from  whom  it  was  thought  that  anything  could  be 
extorted  were  treated  with  execrable  cruelty.  Hoi  well,  unable 
to  walk,  was .  carried  before  the  tyrant,  who  reproached  him, 
threatened  him,  and  sent  him  up  the  country  in  irons,  together 
with  some  other  gentlemen  who  were  suspected  of  knowing 
more  than  they  chose  to  tell  about  the  treasures  of  the 
Company.  These  persons,  still  bowed  down  by  the  sufferings 
of  that  great  agony,  were  lodged  in  miserable  sheds  and  fed 
only  with  grain  and  water,  till  at  length  the  intercessions  of 
the  female  relations  of  the  Nabob  procured  their  release.  One 
Englishwoman  had  survived  that  night.  She  was  placed  in 
the  harem  of  the  Prince  at  Moorshedabad. 

Surajah  Dowlah,  in  the  meantime,  sent  letters  to  his  nom- 
inal sovereign  at  Delhi,  describing  the  late  conquest  in  the 
most  pompous  language.  He  placed  a  garrisons  in  Fort 
William,  forbade  Englishmen  to  dwell  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  directed  that,  in  memory  of  his  great  actions,  Calcutta 
should  thenceforward  be  called  Alinagore ;  that  is  to  say,  the 
Port  of  God. 

In  August  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Calcutta  reached  Madras, 
and  excited  the  fiercest  and  bitterest  resentment.  The  cry  of 
the  whole  settlement  was  for  vengeance.  Within  forty-eight 
hours  after  the  arrival  of  the  intelligence  it  was  determined 
that  an  expedition  should  be  sent  to  the  Hoogly,  and  that 
Clive  should  be  at  the  head  of  the  land  forces.  The  naval 
armament  was  under  the  command  of  Admiral  Watson.  Nine 
hundred  English  infantry,  fine  troops  and  JuiLjof  spirit,  and 
fifteen  hundred  sepoys,  composed  the  army  which  sailed  to 


156  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

punish  a  Prince  who  had  more  subjects  than  Lewis  the 
Fifteenth  or  the  Empress  Maria  Theresa.  In  October  the 
expedition  sailed  ;  but  it  had  to  make  its  way  against  adverse 
winds  and  did  not  reach  Bengal  till  December. 

The  Nabob  was  revelling  in  fancied  security  at  Moorshed- 
abad.  He  was  so  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  state  of  foreign 
countries  that  he  often  used  to  say  that  there  were  not  ten 
thousand  men  in  all  Europe ;  and  it  had  never  occurred  to 
him  as  possible  that  the  English  would  dare  to  invade  his 
dominions.  But,  though  undisturbed  by  any  fear  of  their 
military  power,  he  began  to  miss  them  greatly.  His  revenues 
fell  off ;  and  his  ministers  succeeded  in  making  him  understand 
that  a  ruler  may  sometimes  find  it  more  profitable  to  protect 
traders  in  the  open  enjoyment  of  their  gains  than  to  put  them 
to  the  torture  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  hidden  chests  of 
gold  and  jewels.  He  was  already  disposed  to  permit  the  Com- 
pany to  resume  its  mercantile  operations  in  his  country,  when 
he  received  the  news  that  an  English  armament  was  in  the 
Hoogly.  He  instantly  ordered  all  his  troops  to  assemble  at 
Moorshedabad,  and  marched  towards  Calcutta. 

Clive  had  commenced  operations  with  his  usual  vigour. 
He  took  Budge-budge,  routed  the  garrison  of  Fort  William, 
recovered  Calcutta,  stormed  and  sacked  Hoogly.  The  Nabob, 
already  disposed  to  make  some  concessions  to  the  English,  was 
confirmed  in  his  pacific  disposition  by  these  proofs  of  their 
power  and  spirit.  He  accordingly  made  overtures  to  the  chiefs 
of  the  invading  armament,  and  offered  to  restore  the  factory, 
and  to  give  compensation  to  those  whom  he  had  despoiled. 

Clive's  profession  was  war ;  and  he  felt  that  there  was 
something  discreditable  in  an  accommodation  with  Surajah 
Dowlah.  But  his  power  was  limited.  A  committee,  chiefly 
composed  of  servants  of  the  Company  who  had  fled  from 
Calcutta,  had  the  principal  direction  of  affairs ;  and  these 
persons  were  eager  to  be  restored  to  their  posts  and  compen- 
sated for  their  losses.  The  government  of  Madras,  apprized 
that  war  had  commenced  in  Europe,  and  apprehensive  of  an 


LORD  CLIVE  157 

attack  from  the  French,  became  impatient  for  the  return  of  the 
armament.  The  promises  of  the  Nabob  were  large,  the  chances 
of  a  contest  doubtful ;  and  Clive  consented  to  treat,  though  he 
expressed  his  regret  that  things  should  not  be  concluded  in  so 
glorious  a  manner  as  he  could  have  wished.  .  .  . 

All  was  now  ready  for  action.  Mr.  Watts  fled  secretly  from 
Moorshedabad.  Clive  put  his  troops  in  motion,  and  wrote  to 
the  Nabob  in  a  tone  very  different  from  that  of  his  previous 
letters.  He  set  forth  all  the  wrongs  which  the  British  had 
suffered,  offered  to  submit  the  points  in  dispute  to  the  arbi- 
tration of  Meer  Jafrier,  and  concluded  by  announcing  that, 
as  the  rains  were  about  to  set  in,  he  and  his  men  would  do 
themselves  the  honour  of  waiting  on  his  Highness  for  an 
answer. 

Siirajah  Dowlah  instantly  assembled  his  whole  force,  and 
marched  to  encounter  the  English.  It  had  been  agreed  that 
Meer  Jafrier  should  separate  himself  from  the  Nabob,  and 
carry  over  his  division  to  Clive.  But,  as  the  decisive  moment 
approached,  the  fears  of  the  conspirator  overpowered  his  ambi- 
tion. Clive  had  advanced  to  Cossimbuzar ;  the  Nabob  lay  with 
a  mighty  power  a  few  miles  off  at  Plassey ;  and  still  Meer 
Jaffier  delayed  to  fulfil  his  engagements,  and  returned  evasive 
answers  to  the  earnest  remonstrances  of  the  English  general. 

Clive  was  in  a  painfully  anxious  situation.  He  could  place 
no  confidence  in  the  sincerity  or  in  the  courage  of  his  confed- 
erate ;  and,  whatever  confidence  he  might  place  in  his  own 
military  talents,  and  in  the  valour  and  discipline  of  his  troops, 
it  was  no  light  thing  to  engage  an  army  twenty  times  as 
numerous  as  his  own.  Before  him  lay  a  river  over  which  it 
.vas  easy  to  advance,  but  over  which,  if  things  went  ill,  not 
one  of  his  little  band  would  ever  return.  On  this  occasion, 
for  the  first  and  for  the  last  time,  his  dauntless  spirit,  during 
a  few  hours,  shrank  from  the  fearful  responsibility  of  making 
a  decision.  He  called  a  council  of  war.  The  majority  pro- 
nounced against  fighting,  and  Clive  declared  his  concurrence 


158  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

with  the  majority.  Long  afterwards,  he  said  that  he  had 
never  called  but  one  council  of  war,  and  that  if  he  had  taken 
the  advice  of  that  council  the  British  would  never  have  been 
masters  of  Bengal.  But  scarcely  had  the  meeting  broken  up 
when  he  was  himself  again.  He  retired  alone  under  the  shade 
of  some  trees,  and  passed  near  an  hour  there  in  thought.  He 
came  back  determined  to  put  everything  to  the  hazard,  and 
gave  orders  that  all  should  be  in  readiness  for  passing  the 
river  on  the  morrow. 

The  river  was  passed ;  and,  at  the  close  of  a  toilsome  day's 
march,  the  army,  long  after  sunset,  took  up  its  quarters  in  a 
grove  of  mango-trees  near  Plassey,  within  a  mile  of  the  enemy. 
Clive  was  unable  to  sleep ;  he  heard,  through  the  whole  night, 
the  sound  of  drums  and  cymbals  from  the  vast  camp  of  the 
Nabob.  It  is  not  strange  that  even  his  stout  heart  should  now 
and  then  have  sunk  when  he  reflected  against  what  odds,  and 
for  what  a  prize,  he  was  in  a  few  hours  to  contend. 

Nor  was  the  rest  of  Surajah  Dowlah  more  peaceful.  His 
mind,  at  once  weak  and  stormy,  was  distracted  by  wild  and 
horrible  apprehensions.  Appalled  by  the  greatness  and  near- 
ness of  the  crisis,  distrusting  his  captains,  dreading  every  one 
who  approached  him,  dreading  to  be  left  alone,  he  sat  gloom- 
ily in  his  tent,  haunted,  a  Greek  poet  would  have  said,  by  the 
furies  of  those  who  had  cursed  him  with  their  last  breath  in 
the  Black  Hole. 

The  day  broke  —  the  day  which  was  to  decide  the  fate  of 
India.  At  sunrise  the  army  of  the  Nabob,  pouring  through 
many  openings  of  the  camp,  began  to  move  towards  the  grove 
where  the  English  lay.  Forty  thousand  infantry,  armed  with 
firelocks,  pikes,  swords,  bows  and  arrows,  covered  the  plain. 
They  were  accompanied  by  fifty  pieces  of  ordnance  of  the 
largest  size,  each  tugged  by  a  long  team  of  white  oxen,  and 
each  pushed  on  from  behind  by  an  elephant.  Some  smaller 
guns,  under  the  direction  of  a  few  French  auxiliaries,  were 
perhaps  more  formidable.  The  cavalry  were  fifteen  thousand, 
drawn,  not  from  the  effeminate*  population  of  Bengal,  but  from 


LORD  CLIVE  159 

the  bolder  race  which  inhabits  the  northern  provinces ;  and 
the  practised  eye  of  Clive  could  perceive  that  both  the  men 
and  the  horses  were  more  powerful  than  those  of  the  Carnatic. 
The  force  which  he  had  to  oppose  to  this  great  multitude 
consisted  of  only  three  thousand  men.  But  of  these  nearly  a 
thousand  were  English,  and  all  were  led  by  English  officers, 
and  trained  in  the  English  discipline.  Conspicuous  in  the 
ranks  of  the  little  army  were  the  men  of  the  Thirty-Ninth 
Regiment,  which  still  bears  on  its  colours,  amidst  many  honour- 
able additions  won  under  Wellington  in  Spain  and  Gascony, 
the  name  of  Plassey,  and  the  proud  motto,  Primus  in  Indis. 

The  battle  commenced  with  a  cannonade  in  which  the 
artillery  of  the  Nabob  did  scarcely  any  execution,  while  the 
few  field-pieces  of  the  English  produced  great  effect.  Several 
of  the  most  distinguished  officers  in  Surajah  Dowlah's  service 
fell.  Disorder  began  to  spread  through  his  ranks.  His  own 
terror  increased  every  moment.  One  of  the  conspirators  urged 
on  him  the  expediency  of  retreating.  The  insidious  advice, 
agreeing  as  it  did  with  what  his  own  terrors  suggested,  was 
readily  received.  He  ordered  his  army  to  fall  back,  and  this 
order  decided  his  fate.  Clive  snatched  the  moment,  and  or- 
dered his  troops  to  advance.  The  confused  and  dispirited 
multitude  gave  way  before  the  onset  of  disciplined  valour.  No 
mob  attacked  by  regular  soldiers  was  ever  more  completely 
routed.  The  little  band  of  Frenchmen,  who  alone  ventured  to 
confront  the  English,  were  swept  down  the  stream  of  fugitives. 
In  an  hour  the  forces  of  Surajah  Dowlah  were  dispersed, 
never  to  reassemble.  Only  five  hundred  of  the  vanquished 
were  slain.  But  their  camp,  their  guns,  their  baggage,  innu- 
merable waggons,  innumerable  cattle,  remained  in  the  power 
of  the  conquerors.  With  the  loss  of  twenty-two  soldiers  killed 
and  fifty  wounded,  Clive  had  scattered  an  army  of  near 
sixty  thousand  men,  and  subdued  an  empire  larger  and  more 
populous  than  Great  Britain. 

Meer  Jaffier  had  given  no  assistance  to  the  English  during 
the  action.  But  as  soon  as  he  saw  that  the  fate  of  the  day 


i6o  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

was  decided,  he  drew  off  his  division  of  the  army,  and,  when 
the  battle  was  over,  sent  his  congratulations  to  his  ally.  The  next 
morning  he  repaired  to  the  English  quarters,  not  a  little  uneasy 
as  to  the  reception  which  awaited  him  there.  He  gave  evident 
signs  of  alarm  when  a  guard  was  drawn  out  to  receive  him  with 
the  honours  due  to  his  rank.  But  his  apprehensions  were  speed- 
ily removed.  Clive  came  forward  to  meet  him,  embraced  him, 
saluted  him  as  Nabob  of  the  three  great  provinces  of  Bengal, 
Bahar,  and  Orissa,  listened  graciously  to  his  apologies,  and 
advised  him  to  march  without  delay  to  Moorshedabad. 

Surajah  Dowlah  had  fled  from  the  field  of  battle  with  all 
the  speed  with  which  a  fleet  camel  could  carry  him,  and  arrived 
at  Moorshedabad  in  little  more  than  twenty-four  hours.  There 
he  called  his  councillors  round  him.  The  wisest  advised  him 
to  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  English,  from  whom  he 
had  nothing  worse  to  fear  than  deposition  and  confinement. 
But  he  attributed  this  suggestion  to  treachery.  Others  urged 
him  to  try  the  chance  of  war  again.  He  approved  the  advice, 
and  issued  orders  accordingly.  But  he  wanted  spirit  to  adhere 
even  during  one  day  to  a  manly  resolution.  He  learned  that 
Meer  Jaffier  had  arrived,  and  his  terrors  became  insupport- 
able. Disguised  in  a  mean  dress,  with  a  casket  of  jewels  in 
his  hand,  he  let  himself  down  at  night  from  a  window  of  his 
palace,  and,  accompanied  by  only  two  attendants,  embarked  on 
the  river  for  Patna. 

In  a  few  days  Clive  arrived  at  Moorshedabad,  escorted  by 
two  hundred  English  soldiers  and  three  hundred  sepoys.  For 
his  residence  had  been  assigned  a  palace  which  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  garden  so  spacious  that  all  the  troops  who 
accompanied  him  could  conveniently  encamp  within  it.  The 
ceremony  of  the  installation  of  Meer  Jaffier  was  instantly  per- 
formed. Clive  led  the  new  Nabob  to  the  seat  of  honour, 
placed  him  on  it,  presented  to  him,  after  the  immemorial 
fashion  of  the  East,  an  offering  of  gold,  and  then,  turning  to 
the  natives  who  filled*  the  hall,  congratulated  them  on  the 
good  fortune  which  had  freed  them  from  a  tyrant.  .  .  . 


LORD  CLIVE  161 

The  shower  of  wealth  now  fell  copiously  on  the  Company 
and  its  servants.  A  sum  of  eight  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling,  in  coined  silver,  was  sent  down  the  river  from  Moor- 
shedabad  to  Fort  William.  The  fleet  which  conveyed  this 
treasure  consisted  of  more  than  a  hundred  boats,  and  per- 
formed its  triumphal  voyage  with  flags  flying  and  music 
playing.  Calcutta,  which  a  few  months  before  had  been 
desolate,  was  now  more  prosperous  than  ever.  Trade  revived, 
and  the  signs  of  affluence  appeared  in  every  English  house. 
As  to  Clive,  there  was  no  limit  to  his  acquisitions  but  his  own 
moderation.  The  treasury  of  Bengal  was  thrown  open  to  him. 
There  were  piled  up,  after  the  usage  of  Indian  princes, 
immense  masses  of  coin,  among  which  might  not  seldom 
be  detected  the  florins  and  byzants  with  which,  before  any 
European  ship  had  turned  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the 
Venetians  purchased  the  stuffs  and  spices  of  the  East.  Clive 
walked  between  heaps  of  gold  and  silver,  crowned  with  rubies 
and  diamonds,  and  was  at  liberty  to  help  himself.  He  accepted 
between  two  and  three  hundred  thousand  pounds.  .  .  . 

Three  months  after  this  great  victory,  Clive  sailed  for  Eng- 
land. At  home,  honours  and  rewards  awaited  him,  not  indeed 
equal  to  his  claims  or  to  his  ambition,  but  still  such  as,  when 
his  age,  his  rank  in  the  army,  and  his  original  place  in  society 
are  considered,  must  be  pronounced  rare  and  splendid.  He 
was  raised  to  the  Irish  peerage  and  encouraged  to  expect  an 
English  title.  George  the  Third,  who  had  just  ascended  the 
throne,  received  him  with  great  distinction.  The  ministers 
paid  him  marked  attention  ;  and  Pitt,  whose  influence  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  in  the  country  was  unbounded,  was 
eager  to  mark  his  regard  for  one  whose  exploits  had  contributed 
so  much  to  the  lustre  of  that  memorable  period.  The  great 
orator  had  already  in  Parliament  described  Clive  as  a  heaven- 
born  general,  as  a  man  who,  bred  to  the  labour  of  the  desk, 
had  displayed  a  military  genius  which  might  excite  the  admira- 
tion of  the  King  of  Prussia.  There  were  then  no  reporters  in 
the  gallery ;  but  these  words,  emphatically  spoken  by  the  first 


1 62  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

statesman  of  the  age,  had  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  had 
been  transmitted  to  Clive  in  Bengal,  and  had  greatly  delighted 
and  flattered  him.  Indeed,  since  the  death  of  Wolfe,  Clive 
was  the  only  English  general  of  whom  his  countrymen  had 
much  reason  to  be  proud.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  had 
been  generally  unfortunate  ;  and  his  single  victory,  having  been 
gained  over  his  countrymen  and  used  with  merciless  severity, 
had  been  more  fatal  to  his  popularity  than  his  many  defeats. 
Conway,  versed  in  the  learning  of  his  profession,  and  personally 
courageous,  wanted  vigour  and  capacity.  Granby,  honest,  gen- 
erous, and  as  brave  as  a  lion,  had  neither  science  nor  genius. 
Sackville,  inferior  in  knowledge  and  abilities  to  none  of  his 
contemporaries,  had  incurred,  unjustly  as  we  believe,  the 
imputation  most  fatal  to  the  character  of  a  soldier.  It  was 
under  the  command  of  a  foreign  general  that  the  British  had 
triumphed  at  Minden  and  Warburg.  The  people  therefore,  as 
was  natural,  greeted  with  pride  and  delight  a  captain  of  their 
own,  whose  native  courage  and  self-taught  skill  had  placed 
him  on  a  level  with  the  great  tacticians  of  Germany. 

The  wealth  of  Clive  was  such  as  enabled  him  to  vie  with 
the  first  grandees  of  England.  There  remains  proof  that  he 
had  remitted  more  than  a  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  pounds 
through  the  Dutch  East  India  Company,  and  more  than  forty 
thousand  pounds  through  the  English  Company.  The  amount 
which  he  had  sent  home  through  private  houses  was  also  con- 
siderable. He  had  invested  great  sums  in  jewels,  then  a  very 
common  mode  of  remittance  from  India.  His  purchases  of 
diamonds  at  Madras  alone  amounted  to  twenty-five  thousand 
pounds.  Besides  a  great  mass  of  ready  money,  he  had  his 
.Indian  estate,  valued  by  himself  at  twenty-seven  thousand  a 
year.  His  whole  annual  income,  in  the  opinion  of  Sir  John 
Malcolm,  who  is  desirous  to  state  it  as  low  as  possible,  exceeded 
forty  thousand  pounds  ;  and  incomes  of  forty  thousand  pounds 
at  the  time  of  the  accession  of  George  the  Third  were  at  least 
as  rare  as  incomes  of  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  now.  We 
may  safely  affirm  that  no  Englishman  who  started  with  nothing 


LORD  CLIVE  163 

has  ever,  in  any  line  of  life,  created  such  a  fortune  at  the  early 
age  of  thirty-four.  .  .  . 

At  length  the  state  of  things  in  Bengal  began  to  excite 
uneasiness  at  home.  A  succession  of  revolutions  ;  •  a  disorgan- 
ized administration ;  the  natives  pillaged,  yet  the  Company 
not  enriched ;  every  fleet  bringing  back  fortunate  adventurers 
who  were  able  to  purchase  manors  and  to  build  stately  dwell- 
ings, yet  bringing  back  also  alarming  accounts  of  the  financial 
prospects  of  the  government ;  war  on  the  frontiers  ;  disaffec- 
tion in  the  army ;  the  national  character  disgraced  by  excesses 
resembling  those  of  Verres  and  Pizarro  —  such  was  the  spectacle 
which  dismayed  those  who  were  conversant  with  Indian  affairs. 
The  general  cry  was  that  Clive,  and  Clive  alone,  could  save 
the  empire  which  he  had  founded. 

This  feeling  manifested  itself  in  the  strongest  manner  at  a 
very  full  General  Court  of  Proprietors.  Men  of  all  parties, 
forgetting  their  feuds  and  trembling  for  their  dividends, 
exclaimed  that  Clive  was  the  man  whom  the  crisis  required, 
that  the  oppressive  proceedings  which  had  been  adopted 
respecting  his  estate  ought  to  be  dropped,  and  that  he  ought 
to  be  entreated  to  return  to  India. 

Clive  rose.  As  to  his  estate,  he  said,  he  would  make  such 
propositions  to  the  Directors,  as  would,  he  trusted,  lead  to  an 
amicable  settlement.  But  there  was  a  still  greater  difficulty. 
It  was  proper  to  tell  them  that  he  never  would  undertake  the 
government  of  Bengal  while  his  enemy  Sulivan  was  chairman 
of  the  Company.  The  tumult  was  violent.  Sulivan  could 
scarcely  obtain  a  hearing.  An  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
assembly  was  on  Clive's  side.  Sulivan  wished  to  try  the  result 
of  a  ballot.  But,  according  to  the  bye-laws  of  the  Company, 
there  can  be  no  ballot  except  on  a  requisition  signed  by 
nine  proprietors ;  and,  though  hundreds  were  present,  nine 
persons  could  not  be  found  to  set  their  hands  to  such  a 
requisition. 

Clive  was  in  consequence  nominated  Governor  and  Com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  British  possessions  in  Bengal.  But  he 


1 64  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

adhered  to  his  declaration,  and  refused  to  enter  on  his  office 
till  the  event  of  the  next  election  of  Directors  should  be  known. 
The  contest  was  obstinate ;  but  Clive  triumphed.  Sulivan, 
lately  absolute  master  of  the  India  House,  was  within  a  vote 
of  losing  his  own  seat ;  and  both  the  chairman  and  the  deputy- 
chairman  were  friends  of  the  new  governor. 

Such  were  the  circumstances  under  which  Lord  Clive  sailed 
for  the  third  and  last  time  to  India.  In  May,  1765,  he  reached 
Calcutta  ;  and  he  found  the  whole  machine  of  government  even 
more  fearfully  disorganized  than  he  had  anticipated.  Meer 
Jaffier,  who  had  some  time  before  lost  his  eldest  son  Meeran, 
had  died  while  Clive  was  on  his  voyage  out.  The  English 
functionaries  at  Calcutta  had  already  received  from  home  strict 
orders  not  to  accept  presents  from  the  native  princes.  But, 
eager  for  gain,  and  unaccustomed  to  respect  the  commands  of 
their  distant,  ignorant,  and  negligent  masters,  they  again  set  up 
the  throne  of  Bengal  to  sale.  About  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  pounds  sterling  was  distributed  among  nine  of  the 
most  powerful  servants  of  the  Company ;  and,  in  consideration 
of  this  bribe,  an  infant  son  of  the  deceased  Nabob  was  placed 
on  the  seat  of  his  father.  The  news  of  the  ignominious  bargain 
met  Clive  on  his  arrival.  In  a  private  letter  written  immediately 
after  his  landing  to  an  intimate  friend,  he  poured  out  his  feel- 
ings in  language,  which,  proceeding  from  a  man  so  daring,  so 
resolute,  and  so  little  given  to  theatrical  display  of  sentiment, 
seems  to  us  singularly  touching.  "Alas!"  he  says,  "how  is 
the  English  name  sunk !  I  could  not  avoid  paying  the  tribute 
of  a  few  tears  to  the  departed  and  lost  fame  of  the  British 
nation  —  irrecoverably  so,  I  fear.  However,  I  do  declare,  by 
that  great  Being  who  is  the  searcher  of  all  hearts,  and  to  whom 
we  must  be  accountable  if  there  be  a  hereafter,  that  I  am  come 
out  with  a  mind  superior  to  all  corruption,  and  that  I  am 
determined  to  destroy  these  great  and  growing  evils,  or  perish 
in  the  attempt." 

The  Council  met,  and  Clive  stated  to  them  his  full  deter- 
mination to  make  a  thorough  reform,  and  to  use  for  that 


LORD  CLIVE  165 

purpose  the  whole  of  the  ample  authority,  civil  and  military, 
which  had  been  confided  to  him.  Johnstone,  one  of  the  boldest 
and  worst  men  in  the  assembly,  made  some  show  of  opposition. 
Clive  interrupted  him,  and  haughtily  demanded  whether  he 
meant  to  question  the  power  of  the  new  government.  Johnstone 
was  cowed,  and  disclaimed  any  such  intention.  All  the  faces 
round  the  board  grew  long  and  pale,  and  not  another  syllable 
of  dissent  was  uttered. 

Clive  redeemed  his  pledge.  He  remained  in  India  about  a 
year  and  a  half,  and  in  that  short  time  effected  one  of  the 
most  extensive,  difficult,  and  salutary  reforms  that  ever  was 
accomplished  by  any  statesman.  This  was  the  part  of  his  life 
on  which  he  afterwards  looked  back  with  most  pride.  He  had 
it  in  his  power  to  triple  his  already  splendid  fortune  ;  to  connive 
at  abuses  while  pretending  to  remove  them ;  to  conciliate  the 
goodwill  of  all  the  English  in  Bengal  by  giving  up  to  their 
rapacity  a  helpless  and  timid  race,  who  knew  not  where  lay  the 
island  which  sent  forth  their  oppressors,  and  whose  complaints 
had  little  chance  of  being  heard  across  fifteen  thousand  miles 
of  ocean.  He  knew  that  if  he  applied  himself  in  earnest  to  the 
work  of  reformation,  he  should  raise  every  bad  passion  in  arms 
against  him.  He  knew  how  unscrupulous,  how  implacable, 
would  be  the  hatred  of  those  ravenous  adventurers  who,  having 
counted  on  accumulating  in  a  few  months  fortunes  sufficient  to 
support  peerages,  should  find  all  their  hopes  frustrated.  But 
he  had  chosen  the  good  part,  and  he  called  up  all  the  force 
of  his  mind  for  a  battle  far  harder  than  that  of  Plassey.  At  first 
success  seemed  hopeless ;  but  soon  all  obstacles  began  to  bend 
before  that  iron  courage  and  that  vehement  will.  The  receiving 
of  presents  from  the  natives  was  rigidly  prohibited.  The  private 
trade  of  the  servants  of  the  Company  was  put  down.  The 
whole  settlement  seemed  to  be  set,  as  one  man,  against  these 
measures.  But  the  inexorable  governor  declared  that,  if  he 
could  not  find  support  at  Fort  William,  he  would  procure  it 
elsewhere,  and  sent  for  some  civil  servants  from  Madras  to 
assist  him  in  carrying  on  the  administration.  The  most  factious 


1 66  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  his  opponents  he  turned  out  of  their  offices.  The  rest  sub- 
mitted to  what  was  inevitable,  and  in  a  very  short  time  all 
resistance  was  quelled. 

But  Clive  was  far  too  wise  a  man  not  to  see  that  the  recent 
abuses  were  partly  to  be  ascribed  to  a  cause  which  could  not 
fail  to  produce  similar  abuses,  as  soon  as  the  pressure  of  his 
strong  hand  was  withdrawn.  The  Company  had  followed  a 
mistaken  policy  with  respect  to  the  remuneration  of  its  servants. 
The  salaries  were  too  low  to  afford  even  those  indulgences 
which  are  necessary  to  the  health  and  comfort  of  Europeans 
in  a  tropical  climate.  To  lay  by  a  rupee  from  such  scanty  pay 
was  impossible.  It  could  not  be  supposed  that  men  of  even 
average  abilities  would  consent  to  pass  the  best  years  of  life 
in  exile,  under  a  burning  sun,  for  no  other  consideration  than 
these  stinted  wages.  It  had  accordingly  been  understood,  from 
a  very  early  period,  that  the  Company's  agents  were  at  liberty 
to  enrich  themselves  by  their  private  trade.  This  practice  had 
been  seriously  injurious  to  the  commercial  interests  of  the  cor- 
poration. That  very  intelligent  observer,  Sir  Thomas  Roe,  in 
the  reign  of  James  the  First,  strongly  urged  the  Directors  to 
apply  a  remedy  to  the  abuse.  "Absolutely  prohibit  the  private 
trade,"  said  he;  "for  your  business  will  be  better  done.  I 
know  this  is  harsh.  Men  profess  they  come  not  for  bare 
wages.  But  you  will  take  away  this  plea  if  you  give  great 
wages  to  their  content ;  and  then  you  know  what  you  part 
from." 

In  spite  of  this  excellent  advice,  the  Company  adhered  to 
the  old  system,  paid  low  salaries,  and  connived  at  the  indirect 
gains  of  the  agents.  The  pay  of  a  member  of  Council  was  only 
three  hundred  pounds  a  year.  Yet  it  was  notorious  that  such 
a  functionary  could  not  live  in  India  for  less  than  ten  times 
that  sum ;  and  it  could  not  be  expected  that  he  would  be 
content  to  live  even  handsomely  in  India  without  laying  up 
something  against  the  time  of  his  return  to  England.  This 
system,  before  the  conquest  of  Bengal,  might  affect  the  amount 
of  the  dividends  payable  to  the  proprietors,  but  could  do  little 


LORD  CLIVE  167 

harm  in  any  other  way.  But  the  Company  was  now  a  ruling 
body.  Its  servants  might  still  be  called  factors,  junior  mer- 
chants, senior  merchants.  But  they  were  in  truth  proconsuls, 
propraetors,  procurators,  of  extensive  regions.  They  had 
immense  power.  Their  regular  pay  was  universally  admitted 
to  be  insufficient.  They  were,  by  the  ancient  usage  of  the 
service,  and  by  the  implied  permission  of  their  employers, 
warranted  in  enriching  themselves  by  indirect  means ;  and  this 
had  been  the  origin  of  the  frightful  oppression  and  corruption 
which  had  desolated  Bengal.  Clive  saw  clearly  that  it  was 
absurd  to  give  men  power,  and  to  require  them  to  live  in 
penury.  He  justly  concluded  that  no  reform  could  be  effectual 
which  should  not  be  coupled  with  a  plan  for  liberally  remu- 
nerating the  civil  servants  of  the  Company.  The  Directors,  he 
knew,  were  not  disposed  to  sanction  any  increase  of  the  salaries 
out  of  their  own  treasury.  The  only  course  which  remained 
open  to  the  governor  was  one  which  exposed  him  to  much 
misrepresentation,  but  which  we  think  him  fully  justified  in 
adopting.  He  appropriated  to  the  support  of  the  service  the 
monopoly  of  salt,  which  has  formed,  down  to  our  own  time,  a 
principal  head  of  Indian  revenue  ;  and  he  divided  the  proceeds 
according  to  a  scale  which  seems  to  have  been  not  unreason- 
ably fixed.  He  was  in  consequence  accused  by  his  enemies,  and 
has  been  accused  by  historians,  of  disobeying  his  instructions, 
of  violating  his  promises,  of  authorizing  that  very  abuse  which 
it  was  his  special  mission  to  destroy  —  namely,  the  trade  of  the 
Company's  servants.  But  every  discerning  and  impartial  judge 
will  admit  that  there  was  really  nothing  in  common  between 
the  system  which  he  set  up  and  that  which  he  was  sent  to 
destroy.  The  monopoly  of  salt  had  been  a  source  of  revenue 
to  the  Governments  of  India  before  Clive  was  born.  It  con- 
tinued to  be  so  long  after  his  death.  The  civil  servants  were 
clearly  entitled  to  a  maintenance  out  of  the  revenue,  and  all 
that  Clive  did  was  to  charge  a  particular  portion  of  the  reve- 
nue with  their  maintenance.  He  thus,  while  he  put  an  end  to 
the  practices  by  which  gigantic  fortunes  had  been  rapidly 


1 68  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

accumulated,  gave  to  every  British  functionary  employed  in  the 
East  the  means  of  slowly,  but  surely,  acquiring  a  competence. 
Yet  such  is  the  injustice  of  mankind  that  none  of  those  acts 
which  are  the  real  stains  of  his  life  has  drawn  on  him  so  much 
obloquy  as  this  measure,  which  was  in  truth  a  reform  necessary 
to  the  success  of  all  his  other  reforms. 

He  had  quelled  the  opposition  of  the  civil  servants :  that 
of  the  army  was  more  formidable.  Some  of  the  retrenchments 
which  had  been  ordered  by  the  Directors  affected  the  interests 
of  the  military  service  and  a  storm  arose  such  as  even  Caesar 
would  not  willingly  have  faced.  It  was  no  light  thing  to  en- 
counter the  resistance  of  those  who  held  the  power  of  the 
sword  in  a  country  governed  only  by  the  sword.  Two  hundred 
English  officers  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  against  the  govern- 
ment, and  determined  to  resign  their  commissions  on  the  same 
day,  not  doubting  that  Clive  would  grant  any  terms  rather  than 
see  the  army  (on  which  alone  the  British  empire  in  the  East 
rested)  left  without  commanders.  They  little  knew  the  uncon- 
querable spirit  with  which  they  had  to  deal.  Clive  had  still  a 
few  officers  round  his  person  on  whom  he  could  rely.  He  sent 
to  Fort  St.  George  for  a  fresh  supply.  He  gave  commissions 
even  to  mercantile  agents  who  were  disposed  to  support  him 
at  this  crisis,  and  he  sent  orders  that  every  officer  who 
resigned  should  be  instantly  brought  up  to  Calcutta.  The  con- 
spirators found  that  they  had  miscalculated.  The  governor 
was  inexorable.  The  troops  were  steady.  The  sepoys,  over 
whom  Clive  had  always  possessed  extraordinary  influence,  stood 
by  him  with  unshaken  fidelity.  The  leaders  in  the  plot  were 
arrested,  tried,  and  cashiered.  The  rest,  humbled  and  dis- 
pirited, begged  to  be  permitted  to  withdraw  their  resignations. 
Many  of  them  declared  their  repentance  even  with  tears.  The 
younger  offenders  Clive  treated  with  lenity.  To  the  ringleaders 
he  was  inflexibly  severe,  but  his  severity  was  pure  from  all 
taint  of  private  malevolence.  While  he  sternly  upheld  the  just 
authority  of  his  office,  he  passed  by  personal  insults  and 
injuries  with  magnanimous  disdain.  One  of  the  conspirators 


LORD  CLIVE  169 

was  accused  of  having  planned  the  assassination  of  the  Gover- 
nor ;  but  Clive  would  not  listen  to  the  charge.  "  The  officers," 
he  said,  "  are  Englishmen,  not  assassins." 

While  he  reformed  the  civil  service  and  established  his 
authority  over  the  army,  he  was  equally  successful  in  his  for- 
eign policy.  His  landing  on  Indian  ground  was  the  signal  for 
immediate  peace.  The  Nabob  of  Oude,  with  a  large  army, 
lay  at  that  time  on  the  frontier  of  Bahar.  He  had  been  joined 
by  many  Afghans  and  Mahrattas,  and  there  was  no  small 
reason  to  expect  a  general  coalition  of  all  the  native  powers 
against  the  English.  But  the  name  of  Clive  quelled  in  an 
instant  all  opposition.  The  enemy  implored  peace  in  the  hum- 
blest language,  and  submitted  to  such  terms  as  the  new 
governor  chose  to  dictate. 

At  the  same  time,  the  Government  of  Bengal  was  placed 
on  a  new  footing.  The  power  of  the  English  in  that  province 
had  hitherto  been  altogether  undefined.  It  was  unknown  to 
the  ancient  constitution  of  the  empire,  and  it  had  been  ascer- 
tained by  no  compact.  It  resembled  the  power  which,  in  the 
last  decrepitude  of  the  Western  Empire,  was  exercised  over 
Italy  by  the  great  chiefs  of  foreign  mercenaries  —  the  Ricimers 
and  the  Odoacers  —  who  put  up  and  pulled  down  at  their 
pleasure  a  succession  of  insignificant  princes,  dignified  with  the 
names  of  Caesar  and  Augustus.  But  as  in  Italy,  so  in  India, 
the  warlike  strangers  at  length  found  it  expedient  to  give  to 
a  domination  which  had  been  established  by  arms  the  sanction 
of  law  and  ancient  prescription.  Theodoric  thought  it  politic 
to  obtain  from  the  distant  Court  of  Byzantium  a  commission 
appointing  him  ruler  of  Italy ;  and  Clive,  in  the  same  manner, 
applied  to  the  Court  of  Delhi  for  a  formal  grant  of  the  powers 
of  which  he  already  possessed  the  reality.  The  Mogul  was  ab- 
solutely helpless ;  and,  though  he  murmured,  had  reason  to  be 
well  pleased  that  the  English  were  disposed  to  give  solid  rupees 
(which  he  never  could  have  extorted  from  them)  in  exchange 
for  a  few  Persian  characters  which  cost  him  nothing.  A  bargain 
was  speedily  struck,  and  the  titular  sovereign  of  Hindostan 


I/O  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

issued  a  warrant  empowering  the  Company  to  collect  and 
administer  the  revenues  of  Bengal,  Orissa,  and  Bahar. 

There  was  still  a  Nabob,  who  stood  to  the  British  authorities 
in  the  same  relation  in  which  the  last  drivelling  Chilperics  and 
Childerics  of  the  Merovingian  line  stood  to  their  able  and 
vigorous  Mayors  of  the  Palace,  to  Charles  Martel  and  to 
Pepin.  At  one  time  Clive  had  almost  made  up  his  mind  to 
discard  this  phantom  altogether ;  but  he  afterwards  thought 
that  it  might  be  convenient  still  to  use  the  name  of  the  Nabob, 
particularly  in  dealings  with  other  European  nations.  The 
French,  the  Dutch,  and  the  Danes  would,  he  conceived,  sub- 
mit far  more  readily  to  the  authority  of  the  native  Prince, 
whom  they  had  always  been  accustomed  to  respect,  than  to 
that  of  a  rival  trading  corporation.  This  policy  may  at  that 
time  have  been  judicious.  But  the  pretence  was  soon  found 
to  be  too  flimsy  to  impose  on  anybody,  and  it  was  altogether 
laid  aside.  The  heir  of  Meer  Jaffier  still  resides  at  Moor- 
shedabad,  the  ancient  capital  of  his  house ;  still  bears  the  title 
of  Nabob  ;  is  still  accosted  by  the  English  as  "Your  Highness  "  ; 
and  is  still  suffered  to  retain  a  portion  of  the  regal  state  which 
surrounded  his  ancestors.  A  pension  of  a  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  pounds  a  year  is  annually  paid  to  him  by  the  govern- 
ment. His  carriage  is  surrounded  by  guards  and  preceded  by 
attendants  with  silver  maces.  His  person  and  his  dwelling  are 
exempted  from  the  ordinary  authority  of  the  ministers  of  jus- 
tice. But  he  has  not  the  smallest  share  of  political  power,  and 
is,  in  fact,  only  a  noble  and  wealthy  subject  of  the  Company. 

It  would  have  been  easy  for  Clive,  during  his  second  admin- 
istration in  Bengal,  to  accumulate  riches  such  as  no  subject 
in  Europe  possessed.  He  might,  indeed,  without  subjecting  the 
rich  inhabitants  of  the  province  to  any  pressure  beyond  that 
to  which  their  mildest  rulers  had  accustomed  them,  have 
received  presents  to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  thousand 
pounds  a  year.  The  neighbouring  princes  would  gladly  have 
paid  any  price  for  his  favour.  But  he  appears  to  have  strictly 
adhered  to  the  rules  which  he  had  laid  down  for  the  guidance 


LORD  CLIVE  171 

of  others.  The  Rajah  of  Benares  offered  him  diamonds  of 
great  value.  The  Nabob  of  Oude  pressed  him  to  accept  a 
large  sum  of  money  and  a  casket  of  costly  jewels.  Clive  cour- 
teously but  peremptorily  refused ;  and  it  should  be  observed 
that  he  made  no  merit  of  his  refusal,  and  that  the  facts  did 
not  come  to  light  till  after  his  death.  He  kept  an  exact  account 
of  his  salary,  of  his  share  of  the  profits  accruing  from  the 
trade  in  salt,  and  of  those  presents  which,  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  East,  it  would  be  churlish  to  refuse.  Out  of 
the  sum  arising  from  these  resources  he  defrayed  the  expenses 
of  his  situation.  The  surplus  he  divided  among  a  few  attached 
friends  who  had  accompanied  him  to  India.  He  always  boasted, 
and  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  he  boasted  with  truth,  that  his  last 
administration  diminished  instead  of  increasing  his  fortune. 

One  large  sum  indeed  he  accepted.  Meer  Jaffier  had  left 
him  by  will  above  sixty  thousand  pounds  sterling  in  specie  and 
jewels ;  and  the  rules  which  had  been  recently  laid  down 
extended  only  to  presents  from  the  living,  and  did  not  affect 
legacies  from  the  dead.  Clive  took  the  money,  but  not  for 
himself.  He  made  the  whole  over  to  the  Company  in  trust  for 
officers  and  soldiers  invalided  in  their  service.  The  fund  which 
still  bears  his  name  owes  its  origin  to  this  princely  donation. 

After  a  stay  of  eighteen  months,  the  state  of  his  health 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  return  to  Europe.  At  the  close 
of  January,  1767,  he  quitted  for  the  last  time  the  country  on 
whose  destinies  he  had  exercised  so  mighty  an  influence. 

His  second  return  from  Bengal  was  not,  like  his  first, 
greeted  by  the  acclamations  of  his  countrymen.  Numerous 
causes  were  already  at  work  which  embittered  the  remaining 
years  of  his  life  and  hurried  him  to  an  untimely  grave.  His 
old  enemies  at  the  India  House  were  still  powerful  and  active, 
and  they  had  been  reinforced  by  a  large  band  of  allies  whose 
violence  far  exceeded  their  own.  The  whole  crew  of  pilferers  and 
oppressors  from  whom  he  had  rescued  Bengal  persecuted  him 
with  the  implacable  rancour  which  belongs  to  such  abject 
natures.  Many  of  them  even  invested  their  property  in  India 


1/2  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

stock,  merely  that  they  might  be  better  able  to  annoy  the  man 
whose  firmness  had  set  bounds  to  their  rapacity.  Lying  news- 
papers were  set  up  for  no  purpose  but  to  abuse  him ;  and  the 
temper  of  the  public  mind  was  then  such  that  these  arts,  which 
under  ordinary  circumstances  would  have  been  ineffectual 
against  truth  and  merit,  produced  an  extraordinary  impression. 

The  great  events  which  had  taken  place  in  India  had  called 
into  existence  a  new  class  of  Englishmen,  to  whom  their 
countrymen  gave  the  name  of  Nabobs.  These  persons  had 
generally  sprung  from  families  neither  ancient  nor  opulent ; 
they  had  generally  been  sent  at  an  early  age  to  the  East ;  and 
they  had  there  acquired  large  fortunes,  which  they  had  brought 
back  to 'their  native  land.  It  was  natural  that,  not  having  had 
much  opportunity  of  mixing  with  the  best  society,  they  should 
exhibit  some  of  the  awkwardness  and  some  of  the  pomposity 
of  upstarts.  It  was  natural  that,  during  their  sojourn  in  Asia, 
they  should  have  acquired  some  tastes  and  habits  surprising,  if 
not  disgusting,  to  persons  who  never  had  quitted  Europe.  It 
was  natural  that,  having  enjoyed  great  consideration  in  the 
East,  they  should  not  be  disposed  to  sink  into  obscurity  at 
home ;  and  as  they  had  money,  and  had  not  birth  or  high 
connection,  it  was  natural  that  they  should  display  a  little  obtru- 
sively the  single  advantage  which  they  possessed.  Wherever 
they  settled  there  was  a  kind  of  feud  between  them  and  the 
old  nobility  and  gentry  similar  to  that  which  raged  in  France 
between  the  farmer-general  and  the  marquess.  This  enmity  to 
the  aristocracy  long  continued  to  distinguish  the  servants  of 
the  Company.  More  than  twenty  years  after  the  time  of  which 
we  are  now  speaking,  Burke  pronounced  that  among  the 
Jacobins  might  be  reckoned  "the  East  Indians  almost  to  a 
man,  who  cannot  bear  to  find  that  their  present  importance 
does  not  bear  a  proportion  to  their  wealth." 

The  Nabobs  soon  became  a  most  unpopular  class  of  men. 
Some  of  them  had  in  the  East  displayed  eminent  talents  and 
rendered  great  services  to  the  state ;  but  at  home  their  talents 
were  not  shown  to  advantage,  and  their  services  were  little 


LORD  CLIVE  173 

known.  That  they  had  sprung  from  obscurity ;  that  they  had 
acquired  great  wealth ;  that  they  exhibited  it  insolently  ;  that 
they  spent  it  extravagantly ;  that  they  raised  the  price  of 
everything  in  their  neighbourhood,  from  fresh  eggs  to  rotten 
boroughs ;  that  their  liveries  outshone  those  of  dukes ;  that 
their  coaches  were  finer  than  that  of  the  Lord  Mayor ;  that  the 
examples  of  their  large  and  ill-governed  households  corrupted 
half  the  servants  in  the  country ;  that  some  of  them,  with  all 
their  magnificence,  could  not  catch  the  tone  of  good  society, 
but,  in  spite  of  the  stud  and  the  crowd  of  menials,  of  the  plate 
and  the  Dresden  china,  of  the  venison  and  the  Burgundy,  were 
still  low  men  —  these  were  things  which  excited,  both  in  the 
class  from  which  they  had  sprung  and  in  the  class  into  which 
they  attempted  to  force  themselves,  the  bitter  aversion  which 
is  the  effect  of  mingled  envy  and  contempt.  But  when  it  was 
also  rumoured  that  the  fortune  which  had  enabled  its  possessor 
to  eclipse  the  Lord  Lieutenant  on  the  race-ground,  or  to  carry 
the  county  against  the  head  of  a  house  as  old  as  Domesday 
Book,  had  been  accumulated  by  violating  public  faith,  by  depos- 
ing legitimate  princes,  by  reducing  whole  provinces  to  beggary, 
all  the  higher  and  better,  as  well  as  all  the  low  and  evil,  parts 
of  human  nature  were  stirred  against  the  wretch  who  had 
obtained  by  guilt  and  dishonour  the  riches  which  he  now  lav- 
ished with  arrogant  and  inelegant  profusion.  The  unfortunate 
Nabob  seemed  to  be  made  up  of  those  foibles  against  which 
comedy  has  pointed  the  most  merciless  ridicule,  and  of  those 
crimes  which  have  thrown  the  deepest  gloom  over  tragedy  —  of 
Turcaret  and  Nero,  of  Monsieur  Jourdain  and  Richard  the 
Third.  A  tempest  of  execration  and  derision  such  as  can  be 
compared  only  to  that  outbreak  of  public  feeling  against  the 
Puritans  which  took  place  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration  burst 
on  the  servants  of  the  Company.  The  humane  man  was  horror- 
struck  at  the  way  in  which  they  had  got  their  money,  the 
thrifty  man  at  the  way  in  which  they  spent  it.  The  Dilettante 
sneered  at  their  want  of  taste.  The  Maccaroni  blackballed 
them  as  vulgar  fellows.  Writers  the  most  unlike  in  sentiment 


1/4  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  style,  Methodists  and  libertines,  philosophers  and  buffoons, 
were  for  once  on  the  same  side.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that,  during  a  space  of  about  thirty  years,  the  whole  lighter 
literature  of  England  was  coloured  by  the  feelings  which  we 
have  described.  Foote  brought  on  the  stage  an  Anglo-Indian 
chief  —  dissolute,  ungenerous,  and  tyrannical ;  ashamed  of  the 
humble  friends  of  his  youth ;  hating  the  aristocracy,  yet  child- 
ishly eager  to  be  numbered  among  them  ;  squandering  his 
wealth  on  pandars  and  flatterers  ;  tricking  out  his  chairmen  with 
the  most  costly  hot-house  flowers ;  and  astounding  the  ignorant 
with  jargon  about  rupees,  lacs,  and  jaghires.  Mackenzie,  with 
more  delicate  humour,  depicted  a  plain  country  family  raised 
by  the  Indian  acquisitions  of  one  of  its  members  to  sudden 
opulence,  and  exciting  derision  by  an  awkward  mimicry  of  the 
manners  of  the  great.  Cowper,  in  that  lofty  expostulation 
which  glows  with  the  very  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  poets,  placed 
the  oppression  of  India  foremost  in  the  list  of  those  national 
crimes  for  which  God  had  punished  England  with  years  of 
disastrous  war,  with  discomfiture  in  her  own  seas,  and  with  the 
loss  of  her  transatlantic  empire.  If  any  of  our  readers  will 
take  the  trouble  to  search  in  the  dusty  recesses  of  circulating 
libraries  for  some  novel  published  sixty  years  ago,  the  chance 
is  that  the  villain  or  sub-villain  of  the  story  will  prove  to  be  a 
savage  old  Nabob  with  an  immense  fortune,  a  tawny  com- 
plexion, a  bad  liver,  and  a  worse  heart. 

Such,  as  far  as  we  can  now  judge,  was  the  feeling  of  the 
country  respecting  Nabobs  in  general.  And  Clive  was  emi- 
nently the  Nabob,  the  ablest,  the  most  celebrated,  the  highest 
in  rank,  the  highest  in  fortune,  of  all  the  fraternity.  His 
wealth  was  exhibited  in  a  manner  which  could  not  fail  to 
excite  odium.  He  lived  with  great  magnificence  in  Berkeley 
Square.  He  reared  one  palace  in  Shropshire  and  another  at 
Claremont.  His  parliamentary  influence  might  vie  with  that 
of  the  greatest  families.  But  in  all  this  splendour  and  power 
envy  found  something  to  sneer  at.  On  some  of  his  relations 
wealth  and  dignity  seem  to  have  sat  as  awkwardly  as  on 


LORD  CLIVE  175 

Mackenzie's  Margery  Mushroom.  Nor  was  he  himself,  with 
all  his  great  qualities,  free  from  those  weaknesses  which  the 
satirists  of  that  age  represented  as  characteristic  of  his  whole 
class.  In  the  field,  indeed,  his  habits  were  remarkably  simple. 
He  was  constantly  on  horseback,  was  never  seen  but  in  his 
uniform,  never  wore  silk,  never  entered  a  palanquin,  and  was 
content  with  the  plainest  fare.  But  when  he  was  no  longer  at 
the  head  of  an  army,  he  laid  aside  this  Spartan  temperance 
for  the  ostentatious  luxury  of  a  Sybarite.  Though  his  person 
was  ungraceful,  and  though  his  harsh  features  were  redeemed 
from  vulgar  ugliness  only  by  their  stern,  dauntless,  and  com- 
manding expression,  he  was  fond  of  rich  and  gay  clothing, 
and  replenished  his  wardrobe  with  absurd  profusion.  Sir  John 
Malcolm  gives  us  a  letter  worthy  of  Sir  Matthew  Mite,  in 
which  Clive  orders  "  two  hundred  shirts,  the  best  and  finest 
that  can  be  got  for  love  or  money."  A  few  follies  of  this 
description,  grossly  exaggerated  by  report,  produced  an  unfa- 
vourable impression  on  the  public  mind.  But  this  was  not  the 
worst.  Black  stories,  of  which  the  greater  part  were  pure  inven- 
tions, were  circulated  touching  his  conduct  in  the  East.  He 
had  to  bear  the  whole  odium,  not  only  of  those  bad  acts  to 
which  he  had  once  or  twice  stooped,  but  of  all  the  bad  acts  of 
all  the  English  in  India ;  of  bad  acts  committed  when  he  was 
absent ;  nay,  of  bad  acts  which  he  had  manfully  opposed  and 
severely  punished.  The  very  abuses  against  which  he  had 
waged  an  honest,  resolute,  and  successful  war  were  laid  to  his 
account.  He  was,  in  fact,  regarded  as  the  personification  of 
all  the  vices  and  weaknesses  which  the  public,  with  or  without 
reason,  ascribed  to  the  English  adventurers  in  Asia.  We  have 
ourselves  heard  old  men  who  knew  nothing  of  his  history, 
but  who  still  retained  the  prejudices  conceived  in  their  youth, 
talk  of  him  as  an  incarnate  fiend.  Johnson  always  held  this 
language.  Brown,  whom  Clive  employed  to  lay  out  his  pleasure- 
grounds,  was  amazed  to  see  in  the  house  of  his  noble  employer 
a  chest  which  had  once  been  filled  with  gold  from  the  treasury 
of  Moorshedabad,  and  could  not  understand  how  the  conscience 


176  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  the  criminal  could  suffer  him  to  sleep  with  such  an  object 
so  near  to  his  bedchamber.  The  peasantry  of  Surrey  looked 
with  mysterious  horror  on  the  stately  house  which  was  rising 
at  Claremont,  and  whispered  that  the  great  wicked  lord  had 
ordered  the  walls  to  be  made  so  thick  in  order  to  keep  out  the 
devil,  who  would  one  day  carry  him  away  bodily.  Among  the 
gaping  clowns  who  drank  in  this  frightful  story  was  a  worthless 
ugly  lad  of  the  name  of  Hunt,  since  widely  known  as  William 
Huntington,  S.S. ;  and  the  superstition  which  was  strangely 
mingled  with  the  knavery  of  that  remarkable  impostor  seems 
to  have  derived  no  small  nutriment  from  the  tales  which  he 
heard  of  the  life  and  character  of  Clive. 

In  the  meantime,  the  impulse  which  Clive  had  given  to 
the  administration  of  Bengal  was  constantly  becoming  fainter 
and  fainter.  His  policy  was  to  a  great  extent  abandoned ;  the 
abuses  which  he  had  suppressed  began  to  revive ;  and  at 
length  the  evils  which  a  bad  government  had  engendered 
were  aggravated  by  one  of  those  fearful  visitations  which  the 
best  government  cannot  avert.  In  the  summer  of  1770,  the 
rains  failed  ;  the  earth  was  parched  up  ;  the  tanks  were  empty  ; 
the  rivers  shrank  within  their  beds ;  and.  a  famine,  such  as  is 
known  only  in  countries  where  every  household  depends  for 
support  on  its  own  little  patch  of  cultivation,  filled  the  whole 
valley  of  the  Ganges  with  misery  and  death.  Tender  and  del- 
icate women,  whose  veils  had  never  been  lifted  before  the  pub- 
lic gaze,  came  forth  from  the  inner  chambers  in  which  Eastern 
jealousy  had  kept  watch  over  their  beauty,  threw  themselves 
on  the  earth  before  the  passers-by,  and  with  loud  wailings 
implored  a  handful  of  rice  for  their  children.  The  Hoogly 
every  day  rolled  down  thousands  of  corpses  close  to  the  por- 
ticoes and  gardens  of  the  English  conquerors.  The  very 
streets  of  Calcutta  were  blocked  up  by  the  dying  and  the 
dead.  The  lean  and  feeble  survivors  had  not  energy  enough 
to  bear  the  bodies  of  their  kindred  to  the  funeral  pile  or  to 
the  holy  river,  or  even  to  scare  away  the  jackals  and  vultures 
which  fed  on  human  remains  in  the  face  of  day.  The  extent 


LORD  CLIVE  177 

of  the  mortality  was  never  ascertained  ;  but  it  was  popularly 
reckoned  by  millions.  This  melancholy  intelligence  added  to 
the  excitement  which  already  prevailed  in  England  on  Indian 
subjects.  The  proprietors  of  East  India  stock  were  uneasy 
about  their  dividends.  All  men  of  common  humanity  were 
touched  by  the  calamities  of  our  unhappy  subjects ;  and 
indignation  soon  began  to  mingle  itself  with  pity.  It  was 
rumoured  that  the  Company's  servants  had  created  the  famine 
by  engrossing  all  the  rice  of  the  country ;  that  they  had  sold 
grain  for  eight,  ten,  twelve  times  the  price  at  which  they  had 
bought  it ;  that  one  English  functionary  who,  the  year  before, 
was  not  worth  a  hundred  guineas,  had,  during  that  season  of 
misery,  remitted  sixty  thousand  pounds  to  London.  These 
charges  we  believe  to  have  been  unfounded.  That  servants  of 
the  Company  had  ventured,  since  Clive's  departure,  to  deal  in 
rice  is  probable.  That,  if  they  dealt  in  rice,  they  must  have 
gained  by  the  scarcity,  is  certain.  But  there  is  no  reason  for 
thinking  that  they  either  produced  or  aggravated  an  evil  which 
physical  causes  sufficiently  explain.  The  outcry  which  was 
raised  against  them  on  this  occasion  was,  we  suspect,  as  absurd 
as  the  imputations  which,  in  times  of  dearth  at  home,  were 
once  thrown  by  statesmen  and  judges,  and  are  still  thrown  by 
two  or  three  old  women,  on  the  corn  factors.  It  was,  however, 
so  loud  and  so  general  that  it  appears  to  have  imposed  even 
on  an  intellect  raised  so  high  above  vulgar  prejudices  as  that  of 
Adam  Smith.  What  was  still  more  extraordinary,  these  un- 
happy events  greatly  increased  the  unpopularity  of  Lord  Clive. 
He  had  been  some  years  in  England  when  the  famine  took 
place.  None  of  his  acts  had  the  smallest  tendency  to  produce 
such  a  calamity.  If  the  servants  of  the  Company  had  traded 
in  rice,  they  had  done  so  in  direct  contravention  of  the  rule 
which  he  had  laid  down,  and,  while  in  power,  had  resolutely 
enforced.  But,  in  the  eyes  of  his  countrymen,  he  was,  as  we 
have  said,  the  Nabob,  the  Anglo-Indian  personified;  and, 
while  he  was  building  and  planting  in  Surrey,  he  was  held 
responsible  for  all  the  effects  of  a  dry  season  in  Bengal. 


178  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Parliament  had  hitherto  bestowed  very  little  attention  on  our 
Eastern  possessions.  Since  the  death  of  George  the  Second, 
a  rapid  succession  of  weak  administrations,  each  of  which  was 
in  turn  flattered  and  betrayed  by  the  Court,  had  held  the  sem- 
blance of  power.  Intrigues  in  the  palace,  riots  in  the  capital, 
and  insurrectionary  movements  in  the  American  colonies  had 
left  the  advisers  of  the  Crown  little  leisure  to  study  Indian 
politics.  When  they  did  interfere,  their  interference  was  feeble 
and  irresolute.  Lord  Chatham,  indeed,  during  the  short  period 
of  his  ascendency  in  the  councils  of  George  the  Third,  had 
meditated  a  bold  attack  on  the  Company.  But  his  plans  were 
rendered  abortive  by  the  strange  malady  which  about  that  time 
began  to  overcloud  his  splendid  genius. 

At  length,  in  1772,  it  was  generally  felt  that  Parliament 
could  no  longer  neglect  the  affairs  of  India.  The  Government 
was  stronger  than  any  which  had  held  power  since  the  breach 
between  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  great  Whig  connection  in  1761.  No 
pressing  question  of  domestic  or  European  policy  required  the 
attention  of  public  men.  There  was  a  short  and  delusive  lull 
between  two  tempests.  The  excitement  produced  by  the  Mid- 
dlesex election  was  over ;  the  discontents  of  America  did  not 
yet  threaten  civil  war ;  the  financial  difficulties  of  the  Company 
brought  on  a  crisis ;  the  Ministers  were  forced  to  take  up  the 
subject ;  and  the  whole  storm,  which  had  long  been  gathering, 
now  broke  at  once  on  the  head  of  Clive. 

His  situation  was,  indeed,  singularly  unfortunate.  He  was 
hated  throughout  the  country ;  hated  at  the  India  House ;  hated, 
above  all,  by  those  wealthy  and  powerful  servants  of  the  Com- 
pany, whose  rapacity  and  tyranny  he  had  withstood.  He  had 
to  bear  the  double  odium  of  his  bad  and  of  his  good  actions, 
of  every  Indian  abuse  and  of  every  Indian  reform.  The  state 
of  the  political  world  was  such  that  he  could  count  on  the  sup- 
port of  .no  powerful  connection.  The  party  to  which  he  had 
belonged  —  that  of  George  Grenville  —  had  been  hostile  to  the 
Government,  and  yet  had  never  cordially  united  with  the  other 
sections  of  the  Opposition,  with  the  little  band  which  still 


LORD  CLIVE  179 

followed  the  fortunes  of  Lord  Chatham,  or  with  the  large  and 
respectable  body  of  which  Lord  Rockingham  was  the  acknowl- 
edged leader.  George  Grenville  was  now  dead ;  his  followers 
were  scattered  ;  and  Clive,  unconnected  with  any  of  the  power- 
ful factions  which  divided  the  Parliament,  could  reckon  only 
on  the  votes  of  those  members  who  were  returned  by  himself. 
His  enemies,  particularly  those  who  were  the  enemies  of  his 
virtues,  were  unscrupulous,  ferocious,  implacable.  Their  malev- 
olence aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  utter  ruin  of  his  fame 
and  fortune.  They  wished  to  see  him  expelled  from  Parlia- 
ment, to  see  his  spurs  chopped  off,  to  see  his  estate  confis- 
cated ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  even  such  a  result  as 
this  would  have  quenched  their  thirst  for  revenge. 

Clive's  parliamentary  tactics  resembled  his  military-  tactics. 
Deserted,  surrounded,  outnumbered,  and  with  everything  at 
stake,  he  did  not  even  deign  to  stand  on  the  defensive,  but 
pushed  boldly  forward  to  the  attack.  At  an  early  stage  of  the 
discussions  on  Indian  affairs  he  rose,  and  in  a  long  and  elab- 
orate speech  vindicated  himself  from  a  large  part  of  the 
accusations  which  had  been  brought  against  him.  He  is  said 
to  have  produced  a  great  impression  on  his  audience.  Lord 
Chatham,  who,  now  the  ghost  of  his  former  self,  loved  to  haunt 
the  scene  of  his  glory,  was  that  night  under  the  gallery  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  declared  that  he  had  never  heard  a 
finer  speech.  It  was  subsequently  printed  under  Clive's  direc- 
tion, and,  when  the  fullest  allowance  has  been  made  for  the 
assistance  which  he  may  have  obtained  from  literary  friends, 
proves  him  to  have  possessed,  not  merely  strong  sense  and  a 
manly  spirit,  but  talents  both  for  disquisition  and  declamation 
which  assiduous  culture  might  have  improved  into  the  highest 
excellence.  He  confined  his  defence  on  this  occasion  to  the 
measures  of  his  last  administration,  and  succeeded  so  far  that 
his  enemies  thenceforth  thought  it  expedient  to  direct  their 
attacks  chiefly  against  the  earlier  part  of  his  life. 

The  earlier  part  of  his  life  unfortunately  presented  some 
assailable  points  to  their  hostility.  A  committee  was  chosen 


i8o  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

by  ballot  to  inquire  into  the  affairs  of  India ;  and  by  this  com- 
mittee the  whole  history  of  that  great  revolution  which  threw 
down  Surajah  Dowlah  and  raised  Meer  Jaffier  was  sifted  with 
malignant  care.  Clive  was  subjected  to  the  most  unsparing 
examination  and  cross-examination,  and  afterwards  bitterly 
complained  that  he,  the  Baron  of  Plassey,  had  been  treated 
like  a  sheep-stealer.  The  boldness  and  ingenuousness  of  his 
replies  would  alone  suffice  to  show  how  alien  from  his  nature 
were  the  frauds  to  which,  in  the  course  of  his  Eastern  nego- 
tiations, he  had  sometimes  descended.  He  avowed  the  arts 
which  he  had  employed  to  deceive  Omichund,  and  resolutely 
said  that  he  was  not  ashamed  of  them,  and  that,  in  the  same 
circumstances,  he  would  again  act  in  the  same  manner.  He 
admitted  that  he  had  received  immense  sums  from  Meer 
Jaffier ;  but  he  denied  that,  in  doing  so,  he  had  violated  any 
obligation  of  morality  or  honour.  He  laid  claim,  on  the  con- 
trary, and  not  without  some  reason,  to  the  praise  of  eminent 
disinterestedness.  He  described  in  vivid  language  the  situation 
in  which  his  victory  had  placed  him  :  great  princes  dependent 
on  his  pleasure ;  an  opulent  city  afraid  of  being  given  up  to 
plunder ;  wealthy  bankers  bidding  against  each  other  for  his 
smiles ;  vaults  piled  with  gold  and  jewels  thrown  open  to  him 
alone.  "By  God,  Mr.  Chairman,"  he  exclaimed,  "at  this 
moment  I  stand  astonished  at  my  own  moderation  !  " 

The  inquiry  was  so  extensive  that  the  Houses  rose  before  it 
had  been  completed.  It  was  continued  in  the  following  session. 
When  at  length  the  committee  had  concluded  its  labours, 
enlightened  and  impartial  men  had  little  difficulty  in  making 
up  their  minds  as  to  the  result.  It  was  clear  that  Clive  had 
been  guilty  of  some  acts  which  it  is  impossible  to  vindicate 
without  attacking  the  authority  of  all  the  most  sacred  laws 
which  regulate  the  intercourse  of  individuals  and  of  states. 
But  it  was  equally  clear  that  he  had  displayed  great  talents, 
and  even  great  virtues  ;  that  he  had  rendered  eminent  services 
both  to  his  country  and  to  the  people  of  India  ;  and  that  it 
was  in  truth  not  for  his  dealings  with  Meer  Jaffier  nor  for  the 


LORD  CLIVE  181 

fraud  which  he  had  practised  on  Omichund,  but  for  his  deter- 
mined resistance  to  avarice  and  tyranny,  that  he  was  now 
called  in  question. 

Ordinary  criminal  justice  knows  nothing  of  set-off.  The 
greatest  desert  cannot  be  pleaded  in  answer  to  a  charge  of  the 
slightest  transgression.  If  a  man  has  sold  beer  on  a  Sunday 
morning,  it  is  no  defence  that  he  has  saved  the  life  of  a  fellow- 
creature  at  the  risk  of  his  own.  If  he  has  harnessed  a  New- 
foundland dog  to  his  little  child's  carriage,  it  is  no  defence  that 
he  was  wounded  at  Waterloo.  But  it  is  not  in  this  way  that 
we  ought  to  deal  with  men  who,  raised  far  above  ordinary 
restraints,  and  tried  by  far  more  than  ordinary  temptations,  are 
entitled  to  a  more  than  ordinary  measure  of  indulgence.  Such 
men  should  be  judged  by  their  contemporaries  as  they  will  be 
judged  by  posterity.  Their  bad  actions  ought  not,  indeed,  to 
be  called  good  ;  but  their  good  and  bad  actions  ought  to  be 
fairly  weighed ;  and  if  on  the  whole  the  good  preponderate, 
the  sentence  ought  to  be  one,  not  merely  of  acquittal,  but  of 
approbation.  Not  a  single  great  ruler  in  history  can  be  absolved 
by  a  judge  who  fixes  his  eye  inexorably  on  one  or  two  unjusti- 
fiable acts.  Bruce  the  deliverer  of  Scotland,  Maurice  the 
deliverer  of  Germany,  William  the  deliverer  of  Holland,  his 
great  descendant  the  deliverer  of  England,  Murray  the  good 
regent,  Cosmo  the  father  of  his  country,  Henry  the  Fourth  of 
France,  Peter  the  Great  of  Russia,  how  would  the  best  of 
them  pass  such  a  scrutiny  ?  History  takes  wider  views ;  and 
the  best  tribunal  for  great  political  cases  is  the  tribunal  which 
anticipates  the  verdict  of  history. 

Reasonable  and  moderate  men  of  all  parties  felt  this  in 
dive's  case.  They  could  not  pronounce  him  blameless ;  but 
they  were  not  disposed  to  abandon  him  to  that  low-minded 
and  rancorous  pack  who  had  run  him  down  and  were  eager  to 
worry  him  to  death.  Lord  North,  though  not  very  friendly 
to  him,  was  not  disposed  to  go  to  extremities  against  him. 
While  the  inquiry  was  still  in  progress,  Clive,  who  had  some 
years  before  been  created  a  Knight  of  the  Bath,  was  installed 


1 82  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

with  great  pomp  in  Henry  the  Seventh's  Chapel.  He  was  soon 
after  appointed  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Shropshire.  When  he 
kissed  hands,  George  the  Third,  who  had  always  been  partial 
to  him,  admitted  him  to  a  private  audience,  talked  to  him  half 
an  hour  on  Indian  politics,  and  was  visibly  affected  when  the 
persecuted  general  spoke  of  his  services  and  of  the  way  in 
which  they  had  been  requited. 

At  length  the  charges  came  in  a  definite  form  before  the 
House  of  Commons.  Burgoyne,  chairman  of  the  committee, 
a  man  of  wit,  fashion,  and  honour,  an  agreeable  dramatic  writer, 
an  officer  whose  courage  was  never  questioned  and  whose  skill 
was  at  that  time  highly  esteemed,  appeared  as  the  accuser. 
The  members  of  the  administration  took  different  sides ;  for 
in  that  age  all  questions  were  open  questions,  except  such  as 
were  brought  forward  by  the  Government,  or  such  as  implied 
some  censure  on  the  Government.  Thurlow,  the  Attorney- 
General,  was  among  the  assailants.  Wedderburn,  the  Solicitor- 
General,  strongly  attached  to  Clive,  defended  his  friend  with 
extraordinary  force  of  argument  and  language.  It  is  a  curious 
circumstance  that,  some  years  later,  Thurlow  was  the  most 
conspicuous  champion  of  Warren  Hastings,  while  Wedderburn 
was  among  the  most  unrelenting  persecutors  of  that  great 
though  not  faultless  statesman.  Clive  spoke  in  his  own  defence 
at  less  length  and  with  less  art  than  in  the  preceding  year,  but 
with  much  energy  and  pathos.  He  recounted  his  great  actions 
and  his  wrongs ;  and,  after  bidding  his  hearers  remember  that 
they  were  about  to  decide  not  only  on  his  honour  but  on  their 
own,  he  retired  from  the  House. 

The  Commons  resolved  that  acquisitions  made  by  the  arms 
of  the  State  belong  to  the  State  alone,  and  that  it  is  illegal  in 
the  servants  of  the  State  to  appropriate  such  acquisitions  to 
themselves.  They  resolved  that  this  wholesome  rule  appeared  to 
have  been  systematically  violated  by  the  English  functionaries 
in  Bengal.  On  a  subsequent  day  they  went  a  step  further, 
and  resolved  that  Clive  had,  by  means  of  the  power  which  he 
possessed  as  commander  of  the  British  forces  in  India,  obtained 


LORD  CLIVE  183 

large  sums  from  Meer  Jaffier.  Here  the  Commons  stopped. 
They  had  voted  the  major  and  minor  of  Burgoyne's  syllogism, 
but  they  shrank  from  drawing  the  logical  conclusion.  When  it 
was  moved  that  Lord  Clive  had  abused  his  powers,  and  set  an 
evil  example  to  the  servants  of  the  public,  the  previous  question 
was  put  and  carried.  At  length,  long  after  the  sun  had  risen 
on  an  animated  debate,  Wedderburn  moved  that  Lord  Clive 
had  at  the  same  time  rendered  great  and  meritorious  services 
to  his  country ;  and  this  motion  passed  without  a  division. 

The  result  of  this  memorable  inquiry  appears  to  us,  on  the 
whole,  honourable  to  the  justice,  moderation,  and  discernment 
of  the  Commons.  They  had,  indeed,  no  great  temptation  to 
do  wrong.  They  would  have  been-  very  bad  judges  of  an 
accusation  brought  against  Jenkinson  or  against  Wilkes.  But 
the  question  respecting  Clive  was  not  a  party  question  ;  and 
the  House  accordingly  acted  with  the  good  sense  and  good 
feeling  which  may  always  be  expected  from  an  assembly  of 
English  gentlemen  not  blinded  by  faction. 

The  equitable  and  temperate  proceedings  of  the  British 
Parliament  were  set  off  to  the  greatest  advantage  by  a  foil. 
The  wretched  government  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth  had  mur- 
dered, directly  or  indirectly,  almost  every  Frenchman  who  had 
served  his  country  with  distinction  in  the  East.  Labourdonnais 
was  flung  into  the  Bastile,  and,  after  years  of  suffering,  left  it 
only  to  die.  Dupleix,  stripped  of  his  immense  fortune,  and 
broken-hearted  by  humiliating  attendance  in  ante-chambers, 
sank  into  an  obscure  grave.  Lally  was  dragged  to  the  common 
place  of  execution  with  a  gag  between  his  lips.  The  Commons 
of  England,  on  the  other  hand,  treated  their  living  captain 
with  that  discriminating  justice  which  is  seldom  shown  except 
to  the  dead.  They  laid  down  sound  general  principles ;  they 
delicately  pointed  out  where  he  had  deviated  from  those  prin- 
ciples ;  and  they  tempered  the  gentle  censure  with  liberal 
eulogy.  The  contrast  struck  Voltaire,  always  partial  to  Eng- 
land, and  always  eager  to  expose  the  abuses  of  the  Parliaments 
of  France.  Indeed,  he  seems  at  this  time  to  have  meditated 


1 84  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

a  history  of  the  conquest  of  Bengal.  He  mentioned  his  design 
to  Dr.  Moore  when  that  amusing  writer  visited  him  at  Ferney. 
Wedderburn  took  great  interest  in  the  matter,  and  pressed 
Clive  to  furnish  materials.  Had  the  plan  been  carried  into 
execution,  we  have  no  doubt  that  Voltaire  would  have  produced 
a  book  containing  much  lively  and  picturesque  narrative, 
many  just  and  humane  sentiments  poignantly  expressed,  many 
grotesque  blunders,  many  sneers  at  the  Mosaic  chronology, 
much  scandal  about  the  Catholic  missionaries,  and  much  sub- 
lime theophilanthropy,  stolen  from  the  New  Testament  and 
put  into  the  mouths  of  virtuous  and  philosophical  Brahmins. 

Clive  was  now  secure  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  fortune  and 
his  honours.  He  was  surrounded  by  attached  friends  and 
relations,  and  he  had  not  yet  passed  the  season  of  vigorous 
bodily  and  mental  exertion.  But  clouds  had  long  been  gather- 
ing over  his  mind,  and  now  settled  on  it  in  thick  darkness. 
From  early  youth  he  had  been  subject  to  fits  of  that  strange 
melancholy  "  which  rejoiceth  exceedingly  and  is  glad  when  it 
can  find  the  grave."  While  still  a  writer  at  Madras,  he  had 
twice  attempted  to  destroy  himself.  Business  and  prosperity 
had  produced  a  salutary  effect  on  his  spirits.  In  India,  while 
he  was  occupied  by  great  affairs,  in  England,  while  wealth  and 
rank  had  still  the  charm  of  novelty,  he  had  borne  up  against 
his  constitutional  misery.  But  he  had  now  nothing  to  do  and 
nothing  to  wish  for.  His  active  spirit  in  an  inactive  situation 
drooped  and  withered  like  a  plant  in  an  uncongenial  air.  The 
malignity  with  which  his  enemies  had  pursued  him,  the  in- 
dignity with  which  he  had  been  treated  by  the  committee,  the 
censure  (lenient  as  it  was)  which  the  House  of  Commons  had 
pronounced,  the  knowledge  that  he  was  regarded  by  a  large 
portion  of  his  countrymen  as  a  cruel  and  perfidious  tyrant,  all 
concurred  to  irritate  and  depress  him.  In  the  meantime,  his 
temper  was  tried  by  acute  physical  suffering.  During  his  long 
residence  in  tropical  climates,  he  had  contracted  several  pain- 
ful distempers.  In  order  to  obtain  ease  he  called  in  the  help 
of  opium ;  and  he  was  gradually  enslaved  by  this  treacherous 


LORD  CLIVE  185 

ally.  To  the  last,  however,  his  genius  occasionally  flashed 
through  the  gloom.  It  was  said  that  he  would  sometimes, 
after  sitting  silent  and  torpid  for  hours,  rouse  himself  to  the 
discussion  of  some  great  question,  would  display  in  full  vigour 
all  the  talents  of  the  soldier  and  the  statesman,  and  would 
then  sink  back  into  his  melancholy  repose. 

The  disputes  with  America  had  now  become  so  serious  that 
an  appeal  to  the  sword  seemed  inevitable,  and  the  Ministers 
were  desirous  to  avail  themselves  of  the  services  of  Clive. 
Had  he  still  been  what  he  was  when  he  raised  the  siege  of 
Patna  and  annihilated  the  Dutch  army  and  navy  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Ganges,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  resistance  of  the 
colonists  would  have  been  put  down,  and  that  the  inevitable 
separation  would  have  been  deferred  for  a  few  years.  But  it 
was  too  late.  His  strong  mind  was  fast  sinking  under  many 
kinds  of  suffering.  On  the  twenty-second  of  November,  1774, 
he  died  by  his  own  hand.  He  had  just  completed  his  forty- 
ninth  year. 

In  the  awful  close  of  so  much  prosperity  and  glory,  the 
vulgar  saw  only  a  confirmation  of  all  their  prejudices  ;  and 
some  men  of  real  piety  and  genius  so  far  forgot  the  maxims 
both  of  religion  and  of  philosophy  as  confidently  to  ascribe  the 
mournful  event  to  the  just  vengeance  of  God  and  to  the 
horrors  of  an  evil  conscience.  It  is  with  very  different  feelings 
that  we  contemplate  the  spectacle  of  a  great  mind  ruined  by 
the  weariness  of  satiety,  by  the  pangs  of  wounded  honour,  by 
fatal  diseases,  and  more  fatal  remedies. 

Clive  committed  great  faults  and  we  have  not  attempted 
to  disguise  them.  But  his  faults,  when  weighed  against  his 
merits,  and  viewed  in  connection  with  his  temptations,  do  not 
appear  to  us  to  deprive  him  of  his  right  to  an  honourable 
place  in  the  estimation  of  posterity. 

From  his  first  visit  to  India  dates  the  renown  of  the 
English  arms  in  the  East.  Till  he  appeared,  his  countrymen 
were  despised  as  mere  pedlars,  while  the  French  were  revered 
as  a  people  formed  for  victory  and  command.  His  courage 


1 86  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  capacity  dissolved  the  charm.  With  the  defence  of  Arcot 
commences  that  long  series  of  Oriental  triumphs  which  closes 
with  the  fall  of  Ghizni.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  he  was  only 
twenty-five  years  old  when  he  approved  himself  ripe  for 
military  command.  This  is  a  rare  if  not  a  singular  distinction. 
It  is  true  that  Alexander,  Conde",  and  Charles  the  Twelfth 
won  great  battles  at  a  still  earlier  age ;  but  those  princes  were 
surrounded  by  veteran  generals  of  distinguished  skill,  to  whose 
suggestions  must  be  attributed  the  victories  of  the  Granicus,  of 
Rocroi,  and  of  Narva.  Clive,  an  inexperienced  youth,  had  yet 
more  experience  than  any  of  those  who  served  under  him. 
He  had  to  form  himself,  to  form  his  officers,  and  to  form  his 
army.  The  only  man,  as  far  as  we  recollect,  who  at  an 
equally  early  age  ever  gave  equal  proof  of  talents  for  war  was 
Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

From  Clive's  second  visit  to  India  dates  the  political 
ascendency  of  the  English  in  that  country.  His  dexterity  and 
resolution  realized,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  more  than 
all  the  gorgeous  visions  which  had  floated  before  the  imagina- 
tion of  Dupleix.  Such  an  extent  of  cultivated  territory,  such 
an  amount  of  revenue,  such  a  multitude  of  subjects,  was  never 
added  to  the  dominion  of  Rome  by  the  most  successful  pro- 
consul. Nor  were  such  wealthy  spoils  ever  borne  under 
arches  of  triumph,  down  the  Sacred  Way,  and  through  the 
crowded  Forum,  to  the  threshold  of  Tarpeian  Jove.  The  fame 
of  those  who  subdued  Antiochus  and  Tigranes  grows  dim 
when  compared  with  the  splendour  of  the  exploits  which  the 
young  English  adventurer  achieved  at  the  head  of  an  army 
not  equal  in  numbers  to  one  half  of  a  Roman  legion. 

From  Clive's  third  visit  to  India  dates  the  purity  of  the 
administration  of  our  Eastern  empire.  When  he  landed  in 
Calcutta  in  1765,  Bengal  was  regarded  as  a  place  to  which 
Englishmen  were  sent  only  to  get  rich,  by  any  means,  in  the 
shortest  possible  time.  He  first  made  dauntless  and  unsparing 
war  on  that  gigantic  system  of  oppression,  extortion,  and 
corruption.  In  that  war  he  manfully  put  to  hazard  his  ease, 


LORD  CLIVE  187 

his  fame,  and  his  splendid  fortune.  The  same  sense  of  justice 
which  forbids  us  to  conceal  or  extenuate  the  faults  of  his 
earlier  days  compels  us  to  admit  that  those  faults  were  nobly 
repaired.  If  the  reproach  of  the  Company  and  of  its  servants 
has  been  taken  away ;  if  in  India  the  yoke  of  foreign  masters, 
elsewhere  the  heaviest  of  all  yokes,  has  been  found  lighter 
than  that  of  any  native  dynasty ;  if  to  that  gang  of  public 
robbers,  which  formerly  spread  terror  through  the  whole  plain 
of  Bengal,  has  succeeded  a  body  of  functionaries  not  more 
highly  distinguished  by  ability  and  diligence  than  by  integrity, 
disinterestedness,  and  public  spirit ;  if  we  now  see  such  men 
as  Munro,  Elphinstone,  and  Metcalfe,  after  leading  victorious 
armies,  after  making  and  deposing  kings,  return,  proud  of 
their  honourable  poverty,  from  a  land  which  once  held  out  to 
every  greedy  factor  the  hope  of  boundless  wealth,  the  praise  is 
in  no  small  measure  due  to  Clive.  His  name  stands  high  on 
the  roll  of  conquerors.  But  it  is  found  in  a  better  list  —  in  the 
list  of  those  who  have  done  and  suffered  much  for  the  happi- 
ness of  mankind.  To  the  warrior  history  will  assign  a  place 
in  the  same  rank  with  Lucullus  and  Trajan.  Nor  will  she 
deny  to  the  reformer  a  share  of  that  veneration  with  which 
France  cherishes  the  memory  of  Turgot,  and  with  which  the 
latest  generations  of  Hindoos  will  contemplate  the  statue  of 
Lord  William  Bentinck. 


WARREN    HASTINGS 

On  a  general  review  of  the  long  administration  of  Hastings, 
it  is  impossible  to  deny  that,  against  the  great  crimes  by  which 
it  is  blemished,  we  have  to  set  off  great  public  services. 
England  had  passed  through  a  perilous  crisis.  She  still,  in- 
deed, maintained  her  place  in  the  foremost  rank  of  European 
powers ;  and  the  manner  in  which  she  had  defended  herself 
against  fearful  odds  had  inspired  surrounding  nations  with  a 
high  opinion  both  of  her  spirit  and  of  her  strength.  Never- 
theless, in  every  part  of  the  world  except  one  she  had  been 
a  loser.  Not  only  had  she  been  compelled  to  acknowledge 
the  independence  of  thirteen  colonies  peopled  by  her  children, 
and  to  conciliate  the  Irish  by  giving  up  the  right  of  legislating 
for  them ;  but,  in  the  Mediterranean,  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  on  the  continent  of  America,  she  had 
been  compelled  to  cede  the  fruits  of  her  victories  in  former 
wars.  Spain  regained  Minorca  and  Florida ;  France  regained 
Senegal,  Goree,  and  several  West  Indian  Islands.  The  only 
quarter  of  the  world  in  which  Britain  had  lost  nothing  was 
the  quarter  in  which  her  interests  had  been  committed  to  the 
care  of  Hastings.  In  spite  of  the  utmost  exertions  both  of 
European  and  Asiatic  enemies,  the  power  of  our  country  in 
the  East  had  been  greatly  augmented.  Benares  was  sub- 
jected ;  the  Nabob  Vizier  reduced  to  vassalage.  That  our 
influence  had  been  thus  extended  —  nay,  that  Fort  William  and 
Fort  St.  George  had  not  been  occupied  by  hostile  armies  — 
was  owing,  if  we  may  trust  the  general  voice  of  the  English 
in  India,  to  the  skill  and  resolution  of  Hastings. 

His  internal  administration,  with  all  its  blemishes,  gives  him 
a  title  to  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men 
in  our  history.  He  dissolved  the  double  government.  He 
transferred  the  direction  of  affairs  to  English  hands.  Out  of 

188 


WARREN  HASTINGS  189 

a  frightful  anarchy  he  educed  at  least  a  rude  and  imperfect 
order.  The  whole  organization  by  which  justice  was  dispensed, 
revenue  collected,  peace  maintained  throughout  a  territory  not 
inferior  in  population  to  the  dominions  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth 
or  of  the  Emperor  Joseph,  was  formed  and  superintended  by 
him.  He  boasted  that  every  public  office,  without  exception, 
which  existed  when  he  left  Bengal  was  his  creation.  It  is  quite 
true  that  this  system,  after  all  the  improvements  suggested  by 
the  experience  of  sixty  years,  still  needs  improvement,  and 
that  it  was  at  first  far  more  defective  than  it  now  is.  But 
whoever  seriously  considers  what  it  is  to  construct  from  the 
beginning  the  whole  of  a  machine  so  vast  and  complex  as 
a  government  will  allow  that  what  Hastings  effected  deserves 
high  admiration.  To  compare  the  most  celebrated  European 
ministers  to  him  seems  to  us  as  unjust  as  it  would  be  to 
compare  the  best  baker  in  London  with  Robinson  Crusoe, 
who,  before  he  could  bake  a  single  loaf,  had  to  make  his 
plough  and  his  harrow,  his  fences  and  his  scarecrows,  his 
sickle  and  his  flail,  his  mill  and  his  oven. 

The  just  fame  of  Hastings  rises  still  higher,  when  we  re- 
flect that  he  was  not  bred  a  statesman  ;  that  he  was  sent  from 
school  to  a  counting-house ;  and  that  he  was  employed  during 
the  prime  of  his  manhood  as  a  commercial  agent,  far  from  all 
intellectual  society. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  all,  or  almost  all,  to  whom,  when 
placed  at  the  head  of  affairs,  he  could  apply  for  assistance 
were  persons  who  owed  as  little  as  himself,  or  less  than  him- 
self, to  education.  A  minister  in  Europe  finds  himself,  on  the 
first  day  on  which  he  commences  his  functions,  surrounded 
by  experienced  public  servants,  the  depositaries  of  official  tra- 
ditions. Hastings  had  no  such  help.  His  own  reflection,  his 
own  energy,  were  to  supply  the  place  of  all  Downing  Street 
and  Somerset  House.  Having  had  no  facilities  for  learning, 
he  was  forced  to  teach.  He  had  first  to  form  himself,  and 
then  to  form  his  instruments ;  and  this  not  in  a  single  depart- 
ment, but  in  all  the  departments  of  the  administration. 


190  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

It  must  be  added  that,  while  engaged  in  this  most  arduous 
task,  he  was  constantly  trammelled  by  orders  from  home,  and 
frequently  borne  down  by  a  majority  in  Council.  The  preser- 
vation of  an  Empire  from  a  formidable  combination  of  foreign 
enemies,  the  construction  of  a  government  in  all  its  parts, 
were  accomplished  by  him  while  every  ship  brought  out  bales 
of  censure  from  his  employers,  and  while  the  records  of  every 
consultation  were  filled  with  acrimonious  minutes  by  his  col- 
leagues. We  believe  that  there  never  was  a  public  man  whose 
temper  was  so  severely  tried ;  not  Marlborough,  when  thwarted 
by  the  Dutch  Deputies ;  not  Wellington,  when  he  had  to  deal 
at  once  with  the  Portuguese  Regency,  the  Spanish  Juntas,  and 
Mr.  Percival.  But  the  temper  of  Hastings  was  equal  to  almost 
any  trial.  It  was  not  sweet,  but  it  was  calm.  Quick  and 
vigorous  as  his  intellect  was,  the  patience  with  which  he 
endured  the  most  cruel  vexations  till  a  remedy  could  be  found 
resembled  the  patience  of  stupidity.  He  seems  to  have  been 
capable  of  resentment,  bitter  and  long-enduring ;  yet  his  resent- 
ment so  seldom  hurried  him  into  any  blunder  that  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  what  appeared  to  be  revenge  was  anything 
but  policy. 

The  effect  of  this  singular  equanimity  was  that  he  always 
had  the  full  command  of  all  the  resources  of  one  of  the  most 
fertile  minds  that  ever  existed.  Accordingly,  no  complication 
of  perils  and  embarrassments  could  perplex  him.  For  every 
difficulty  he  had  a  contrivance  ready ;  and,  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  the  justice  and  humanity  of  some  of  his  contriv- 
ances, it  is  certain  that  they  seldom  failed  to  serve  the  purpose 
for  which  they  were  designed. 

Together  with  this  extraordinary  talent  for  devising  ex- 
pedients, Hastings  possessed,  in  a  very  high  degree,  another 
talent  scarcely  less  necessary  to  a  man  in  his  situation ;  we 
mean  the  talent  for  conducting  political  controversy.  It  is  as 
necessary  to  an  English  statesman  in  the  East  that  he  should 
be  able  to  write,  as  it  is  to  a  minister  in  this  country  that  he 
should  be  able  to  speak.  It  is  chiefly  by  the  oratory  of  a 


WARREN  HASTINGS  191 

public  man  here  that  the  nation  judges  of  his  powers.  It  is 
from  the  letters  and  reports  of  a  public  man  in  India  that  the 
dispensers  of  patronage  form  their  estimate  of  him.  In  each 
case,  the  talent  which  receives  peculiar  encouragement  is 
developed,  perhaps  at  the  expense  of  the  other  powers.  In 
this  country,  we  sometimes  hear  men  speak  above  their  abilities. 
It  is  not  very  unusual  to  find  gentlemen  in  the  Indian  service 
who  write  above  their  abilities.  The  English  politician  is  a 
little  too  much  of  a  debater ;  the  Indian  politician  a  little  too 
much  of  an  essayist. 

Of  the  numerous  servants  of  the  Company  who  have  dis- 
tinguished themselves  as  framers  of  minutes  and  despatches, 
Hastings  stands  at  the  head.  He  was,  indeed,  the  person  who 
gave  to  the  official  writing  of  the  Indian  governments  the 
character  which  it  still  retains.  He  was  matched  against  no 
common  antagonist.  But  even  Francis  was  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge, with  sullen  and  resentful  candour,  that  there  was  no 
contending  against  the  pen  of  Hastings.  And,  in  truth,  the 
Governor-General's  power  of  making  out  a  case,  of  perplexing 
what  it  was  inconvenient  that  people  should  understand,  and 
of  setting  in  the  clearest  point  of  view  whatever  would  bear 
the  light,  was  incomparable.  His  style  must  be  praised 
with  some  reservation.  It  was,  in  general,  forcible,  pure,  and 
polished ;  but  it  was  sometimes,  though  not  often,  turgid, 
and  on  one  or  two  occasions  even  bombastic.  Perhaps  the 
fondness  of  Hastings  for  Persian  literature  may  have  tended 
to  corrupt  his  taste. 

And,  since  we  have  referred  to  his  literary  tastes,  it  would 
be  most  unjust  not  to  praise  the  judicious  encouragement 
which,  as  a  ruler,  he  gave  to  liberal  studies  and  curious  re- 
searches. His  patronage  was  extended,  with  prudent  generosity, 
to  voyages,  travels,  experiments,  publications.  He  did  little,  it 
is  true,  towards  introducing  into  India  the  learning  of  the  West. 
To  make  the  young  natives  of  Bengal  familiar  with  Milton 
and  Adam  Smith,  to  substitute  the  geography,  astronomy, 
and  surgery  of  Europe  for  the  dotages  of  the  Brahminical 


192  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

superstition,  or  for  the  imperfect  science  of  ancient  Greece  trans- 
fused through  Arabian  expositions  —  this  was  a  scheme  reserved 
to  crown  the  beneficent  administration  of  a  far  more  virtuous 
ruler.  Still,  it  is  impossible  to  refuse  high  commendation  to  a 
man  who,  taken  from  a  ledger  to  govern  an  empire,  overwhelmed 
by  public  business,  surrounded  by  people  as  busy  as  himself, 
and  separated  by  thousands  of  leagues  from  almost  all  literary 
society,  gave,  both  by  his  example  and  by  his  munificence,  a 
great  impulse  to  learning.  In  Persian  and  Arabic  literature  he 
was  deeply  skilled.  With  the  Sanscrit  he  was  not  himself 
acquainted;  but  those  who  first  brought  that  language  to  the 
knowledge  of  European  students  owed  much  to  his  encourage- 
ment. It  was  under  his  protection  that  the  Asiatic  Society 
commenced  its  honourable  career.  That  distinguished  body 
selected  him  to  be  its  first  president ;  but,  with  excellent  taste 
and  feeling,  he  declined  the  honour  in  favour  of  Sir  William 
Jones.  But  the  chief  advantage  which  the  students  of  Oriental 
letters  derived  from  his  patronage  remains  to  be  mentioned. 
The  Pundits  of  Bengal  had  always  looked  with  great  jealousy 
on  the  attempts  of  foreigners  to  pry  into  those  mysteries  which 
were  locked  up  in  the  sacred  dialect.  The  Brahminical  religion 
had  been  persecuted  by  the  Mahommedans.  What  the  Hindoos 
knew  of  the  spirit  of  the  Portuguese  Government  might  warrant 
them  in  apprehending  persecution  from  Christians.  That  ap- 
prehension the  wisdom  and  moderation  of  Hastings  removed. 
He  was  the  first  foreign  ruler  who  succeeded  in  gaining  the 
confidence  of  the  hereditary  priests  of  India,  and  who  induced 
th'em  to  lay  open  to  English  scholars  the  secrets  of  the  old 
Brahminical  theology  and  jurisprudence. 

It  is,  indeed,  impossible  to  deny  that,  in  the  great  art  of 
inspiring  large  masses  of  human  beings  with  confidence  and 
attachment  no  ruler  ever  surpassed  Hastings.  If  he  had  made 
himself  popular  with  the  English  by  giving  up  the  Bengalese 
to  extortion  and  oppression,  or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had 
conciliated  the  Bengalese  and  alienated  the  English,  there 
would  have  been  no  cause  for  wonder.  What  is  peculiar  to 


WARREN  HASTINGS  193 

him  is  that,  being  the  chief  of  a  small  band  of  strangers  who 
exercised  boundless  power  over  a  great  indigenous  population, 
he  made  himself  beloved  both  by  the  subject  many  and  by  the 
dominant  few.  The  affection  felt  for  him  by  the  civil  service 
was  singularly  ardent  and  constant.  Through  all  his  disasters 
and  perils,  his  brethren  stood  by  him  with  steadfast  loyalty. 
The  army,  at  the  same  time,  loved  him  as  armies  have  seldom 
loved  any  but  the  greatest  chiefs  who  have  led  them  to  victory. 
Even  in  his  disputes  with  distinguished  military  men,  he  could 
always  count  on  the  support  of  the  military  profession.  While 
such  was  his  empire  over  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  he 
enjoyed  among  the  natives  a  popularity,  such  as  other  governors 
have  perhaps  better  merited,  but  such  as  no  other  governor  has 
been  able  to  attain.  He  spoke  their  vernacular  dialects  with 
facility  and  precision.  He  was  intimately  acquainted  with  their 
feelings  and  usages.  On  one  or  two  occasions,  for  great  ends, 
he  deliberately  acted  in  defiance  of  their  opinion ;  but  on  such 
occasions  he  gained  more  in  their  respect  than  he  lost  in  their 
love.  In  general,  he  carefully  avoided  all  that  could  shock 
their  national  or  religious  prejudices.  His  administration  was, 
indeed,  in  many  respects  faulty ;  but  the  Bengalee  standard  of 
good  government  was  not  high.  Under  the  Nabobs,  the 
hurricane  of  Mahratta  cavalry  had  passed  annually  over  the 
rich  alluvial  plain.  But  even  the  Mahratta  shrank  from .  a 
conflict  with  the  mighty  children  of  the  sea ;  and  the  immense 
rice  harvests  of  the  Lower  Ganges  were  safely  gathered  in 
under  the  protection  of  the  English  sword.  The  first  English 
conquerors  had  been,  more  rapacious  and  merciless  even  than 
the  Mahrattas ;  but  that  generation  had  passed  away.  Defective 
as  was  the  police,  heavy  as  were  the  public  burdens,  it  is 
probable  that  the  oldest  man  in  Bengal  could  not  recollect  a 
season  of  equal  security  and  prosperity.  For  the  first  time 
within  living  memory,  the  province  was  placed  under  a  govern- 
ment strong  enough  to  prevent  others  from  robbing,  and  not 
inclined  to  play  the  robber  itself.  These  things  inspired  good- 
will. At  the  same  time,  the  constant  success  of  Hastings  and 


194  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  manner  in  which  he  extricated  himself  from  every  difficulty 
made  him  an  object  of  superstitious  admiration  ;  and  the  more 
than  regal  splendour  which  he  sometimes  displayed  dazzled 
a  people  who  have  much  in  common  with  children.  Even 
now,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  fifty  years,  the  natives  of 
India  still  talk  of  him  as  the  greatest  of  the  English ;  and 
nurses  sing  children  to  sleep  with  a  jingling  ballad  about  the 
fleet  horses  and  richly  caparisoned  elephants  of  Sahib  Warren 
Hostein. 

The  gravest  offences  of  which  Hastings  was  guilty  did  not 
affect  his  popularity  with  the  people  of  Bengal ;  for  those 
offences  were  committed  against  neighbouring  states.  Those 
offences,  as  our  readers  must  have  perceived,  we  are  not  dis- 
posed to  vindicate  ;  yet,  in  order  that  the  censure  may  be  justly 
apportioned  to  the  transgression,  it  is  fit  that  the  motive  of 
the  criminal  should  be  taken  into  consideration.  The  motive 
which  prompted  the  worst  acts  of  Hastings  was  misdirected 
and  ill-regulated  public  spirit.  The  rules  of  justice,  the  senti- 
ments of  humanity,  the  plighted  faith  of  treaties,  were  in  his 
view  as  nothing  when  opposed  to  the  immediate  interest  of 
the  State.  This  is  no  justification,  according  to  the  principles 
either  of  morality,  or  of  what  we  believe  to  be  identical  with 
morality — namely,  far-sighted  policy.  Nevertheless  the  common 
sense  of  mankind,  which  in  questions  of  this  sort  seldom  goes 
far  wrong,  will  always  recognize  a  distinction  between  crimes 
which  originate  in  an  inordinate  zeal  for  the  commonwealth, 
and  crimes  which  originate  in  selfish  cupidity.  To  the  benefit 
of  this  distinction  Hastings  is  fairly  entitled.  There  is,  we 
conceive,  no  reason  to  suspect  that  the  Rohilla  war,  the  revo- 
lution of  Benares,  or  the  spoliation  of  the  Princesses  of  Oude 
added  a  rupee  to  his  fortune.  We  will  not  affirm  that  in  all 
pecuniary  dealings  he  showed  that  punctilious  integrity,  that 
dread  of  the  faintest  appearance  of  evil,  which  is  now  the  glory 
of  the  Indian  civil  service.  But  when  the  school  in  which  he 
had  been  trained  and  the  temptations  to  which  he  was  exposed 
are  considered,  we  are  more  inclined  to  praise  him  for  his 


WARREN  HASTINGS  195 

general  uprightness  with  respect  to  money  than  rigidly  to  blame 
him  for  a  few  transactions  which  would  now  be  called  indeli- 
cate and  irregular,  but  which  even  now  would  hardly  be  desig- 
nated as  corrupt.  A  rapacious  man  he  certainly  was  not.  Had 
he  been  so,  he  would  infallibly  have  returned  to  his  country 
the  richest  subject  in  Europe.  We  speak  within  compass  when 
we  say  that,  without  applying  any  extraordinary  pressure,  he 
might  easily  have  obtained  from  the  zemindars  of  the  Com- 
pany's provinces  and  from  neighbouring  princes,  in  the  course 
of  thirteen  years,  more  than  three  millions  sterling,  and  might 
have  outshone  the  splendour  of  Carlton  House  and  of  the 
Palais  Royal.  He  brought  home  a  fortune  such  as  a  Gov- 
ernor-General, fond  of  state  and  careless  of  thrift,  might  easily, 
during  so  long  a  tenure  of  office,  save  out  of  his  legal  salary. 
Mrs.  Hastings,  we  are  afraid,  was  less  scrupulous.  It  was  gen- 
erally believed  that  she  accepted  presents  with  great  alacrity, 
and  that  she  thus  formed,  without  the  connivance  of  her  hus- 
band, a  private  hoard  amounting  to  several  lacs  of  rupees. 
We  are  the  more  inclined  to  give  credit  to  this  story  because 
Mr.  Gleig,  who  cannot  but  have  heard  it,  does  not,  as  far  as 
we  have  observed,  notice  or  contradict  it. 

The  influence  of  Mrs.  Hastings  over  her  husband  was,  indeed, 
such  that  she  might  easily  have  obtained  much  larger  sums 
than  she  was  ever  accused  of  receiving.  At  length  her  health 
began  to  give  way;  and  the  Governor-General,  much  against 
his  will,  was  compelled  to  send  her  to  England.  He  seems 
to  have  loved  her  with  that  love  which  is  peculiar  to  men 
of  strong  minds,  to  men  whose  affection  is  not  easily  won  or 
widely  diffused.  The  talk  of  Calcutta  ran  for  some  time  on 
the  luxurious  manner  in  which  he  fitted  up  the  round-house 
of  an  Indiaman  for  her  accommodation,  on  the  profusion  of 
sandal- wood  and  carved  ivory  which  adorned  her  cabin,  and  on 
the  thousands  of  rupees  which  had  been  expended  in  order  to 
procure  for  her  the  society  of  an  agreeable  female  companion 
during  the  voyage.  We  may  remark  here  that  the  letters  of 
Hastings  to  his  wife  are  exceedingly  characteristic. '  They  are 


196  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

tender,  and  full  of  indications  of  esteem  and  confidence ;  but, 
at  the  same  time,  a  little  more  ceremonious  than  is  usual  in  so 
intimate  a  relation.  The  solemn  courtesy  with  which  he  com- 
pliments "his  elegant  Marian"  reminds  us  now  and  then  of 
the  dignified  air  with  which  Sir  Charles  Grandison  bowed  over 
Miss  Byron's  hand  in  the  cedar  parlour. 

After  some  months,  Hastings  prepared  to  follow  his  wife 
to  England.  When  it  was  announced  that  he  was  about  to 
quit  his  office,  the  feeling  of  the  society  which  he  had  so  long 
governed  manifested  itself  by  many  signs.  Addresses  poured 
in  from  Europeans  and  Asiatics,  from  civil  functionaries,  sol- 
diers, and  traders.  On  the  day  on  which  he  delivered  up  the 
keys  of  office,  a  crowd  of  friends  and  admirers  formed  a  lane 
to  the  quay  where  he  embarked.  Several  barges  escorted  him 
far  down  the  river ;  and  some  attached  friends  refused  to  quit 
him  till  the  low  coast  of  Bengal  was  fading  from  the  view, 
and  till  the  pilot  was  leaving  the  ship. 

Of  his  voyage  little  is  known,  except  that  he  amused  him- 
self with  books  and  with  his  pen,  and  that  among  the  com- 
positions by  which  he  beguiled  the  tediousness  of  that  long 
leisure  was  a  pleasing  imitation  of  Horace's  Otium  Divos 
rogat.  This  little  poem  was  inscribed  to  Mr.  Shore,  afterwards 
Lord  Teignmouth,  a  man  of  whose  integrity,  humanity,  and 
honour  it  is  impossible  to  speak  too  highly,  but  who,  like  some 
other  excellent  members  of  the  civil  service,  extended  to  the 
conduct  of  his  friend  Hastings  an  indulgence  of  which  his 
own  conduct  never  stood  in  need. 

The  voyage  was,  for  those  times,  very  speedy.  Hastings 
was  little  more  than  four  months  on  the  sea.  In  June,  1785, 
he  landed  at  Plymouth,  posted  to  London,  appeared  at  Court, 
paid  his  respects  in  Leadenhall  Street,  and  then  retired  with 
his  wife  to  Cheltenham. 

He  was  greatly  pleased  with  his  reception.  The  King 
treated  him  with  marked  distinction.  The  Queen,  who  had 
already  incurred  much  censure  on  account  of  the  favour  which, 
in  spite  of  the  ordinary  severity  of  her  virtue,  she  had  shown 


WARREN  HASTINGS  197 

to  the  "elegant  Marian,"  was  not  less  gracious  to  Hastings. 
The  Directors  received  him  in  a  solemn  sitting ;  and  their 
chairman  read  to  him  a  vote  of  thanks  which  they  had  passed 
without  one  dissentient  voice.  "  I  find  myself,"  said  Hastings, 
in  a  letter  written  about  a  quarter  of  a  year  after  his  arrival  in 
England—  "I  find  myself  everywhere,  and  universally,  treated 
with  evidences,  apparent  even  to  my  own  observation,  that  I 
possess  the  good  opinion  of  my  country." 

The  confident  and  exulting  tone  of  his  correspondence 
about  this  time  is  the  more  remarkable  because  he  had  al- 
ready received  ample  notice  of  the  attack  which  was  in  prep- 
paration.  Within  a  week  after  he  landed  at  Plymouth,  Burke 
gave  notice  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  a  motion  seriously 
affecting  a  gentleman  lately  returned  from  India.  The  Session, 
however,  was  then  so  far  advanced  that  it  was  impossible  to 
enter  on  so  extensive  and  important  a  subject. 

Hastings,  it  is  clear,  was  not  sensible  of  the  danger  of  his 
position.  Indeed,  that  sagacity,  that  judgment,  that  readiness 
in  devising  expedients,  which  had  distinguished  him  in  the 
East  seemed  now  to  have  forsaken  him ;  not  that  his  abilities 
were  at  all  impaired ;  not  that  he  was  not  still  the  same  man 
who  had  triumphed  over  Francis  and  Nuncomar,  who  had 
made  the  Chief  Justice  and  the  Nabob  Vizier  his  tools,  who 
had  deposed  Cheyte  Sing  and  repelled  Hyder  Ali.  But  an 
oak,  as  Mr.  Grattan  finely  said,  should  not  be  transplanted  at 
fifty.  A  man  who,  having  left  England  when  a  boy,  returns 
to  it  after  thirty  or  forty  years  passed  in  India,  will  find,  be 
his  talents  what  they  may,  that  he  has  much  both  to  learn 
and  to  unlearn  before  he  can  take  a  place  among  English 
statesmen.  The  working  of  a  representative  system,  the  war 
of  parties,  the  arts  of  debate,  the  influence  of  the  press,  are 
startling  novelties  to  him.  Surrounded  on  every  side  by  new 
machines  and  new  tactics,  he  is  as  much  bewildered  as 
Hannibal  would  have  been  at  Waterloo,  or  Themistocles  at 
Trafalgar.  His  very  acuteness  deludes  him.  His  very  vigour 
causes  him  to  stumble.  The  more  correct  his  maxims,  when 


198  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

applied  to  the  state  of  society  to  which  he  is  accustomed,  the 
more  certain  they  are  to  lead  him  astray.  This  was  strikingly 
the  case  with  Hastings.  In  India  he  had  a  bad  hand ;  but  he 
was  master  of  the  game,  and  he  won  every  stake.  In  England 
he  held  excellent  cards,  if  he  had  known  how  to  play  them ; 
and  it  was  chiefly  by  his  own  errors  that  he  was  brought  to 
the  verge  of  ruin. 

Of  all  his  errors  the  most  serious  was,  perhaps,  the  choice  of 
a  champion.  Clive,  in  similar  circumstances,  had  made  a 
singularly  happy  selection.  He  put  himself  into  the  hands  of 
Wedderburn,  afterwards  Lord  Loughborough,  one  of  the  few 
great  advocates  who  have  also  been  great  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  To  the  defence  of  Clive,  therefore,  nothing  was 
wanting  —  neither  learning  nor  knowledge  of  the  world,  neither 
forensic  acuteness  nor  that  eloquence  which  charms  political 
assemblies.  Hastings  intrusted  his  interests  to  a  very  different 
person,  a  Major  in  the  Bengal  army,  named  Scott.  This 
gentleman  had  been  sent  over  from  India  some  time  before 
as  the  agent  of  the  Governor-General.  It  was  rumoured  that 
his  services  were  rewarded  with  Oriental  munificence ;  and  we 
believe  that  he  received  much  more  than  Hastings  could  con- 
veniently spare.  The  Major  obtained  a  seat  in  Parliament, 
and  was  there  regarded  as  the  organ  of  his  employer.  It  was 
evidently  impossible  that  a  gentleman  so  situated  could  speak 
with  the  authority  which  belongs  to  an  independent  position. 
Nor  had  the  agent  of  Hastings  the  talents  necessary  for 
obtaining  the  ear  of  an  assembly  which,  accustomed  to  listen 
to  great  orators,  had  naturally  become  fastidious.  He  was 
always  on  his  legs ;  he  was  very  tedious ;  and  he  had  only 
one  topic,  the  merits  and  wrongs  of  Hastings.  Everybody 
who  knows  the  House  of  Commons  will  easily  guess  what 
followed.  The  Major  was  soon  considered  as  the  greatest 
bore  of  his  time.  His  exertions  were  not  confined  to  Parlia- 
ment. There  was  hardly  a  day  on  which  the  newspapers  did 
not  contain  some  puff  upon  Hastings,  signed  Asiaticus  or 
Bengalensis,  but  known  to  be  written  by  the  indefatigable 


WARREN  HASTINGS  199 

Scott ;  and  hardly  a  month  in  which  some  bulky  pamphlet  on 
the  same  subject,  and  from  the  same  pen,  did  not  pass  to  the 
trunk-makers  and  the  pastry-cooks.  As  to  this  gentleman's 
capacity  for  conducting  a  delicate  question  through  Parliament, 
our  readers  will  want  no  evidence  beyond  that  which  they  will 
find  in  letters  preserved  in  these  volumes.  We  will  give  a 
single  specimen  of  his  temper  and  judgment.  He  designated 
the  greatest  man  then  living  as  "  that  reptile  Mr.  Burke." 

In  spite,  however,  of  this  unfortunate  choice,  the  general 
aspect  of  affairs  was  favourable  to  Hastings.  The  King  was 
on  his  side.  The  Company  and  its  servants  were  zealous  in 
his  cause.  Among  public  men  he  had  many  ardent  friends. 
Such  were  Lord  Mansfield,  who  had  outlived  the  vigour  of 
his  body,  but  not  that  of  his  mind  ;  and  Lord  Lansdowne, 
who,  though  unconnected  with  any  party,  retained  the  impor- 
tance which  belongs  to  great  talents  and  knowledge.  The 
ministers  were  generally  believed  to  be  favourable  to  the  late 
Governor-General.  They  owed  their  power  to  the  clamour 
which  had  been  raised  against  Mr.  Fox's  East  India  Bill. 
The  authors  of  that  bill,  when  accused  of  invading  vested 
rights,  and  of  setting  up  powers  unknown  to  the  constitution, 
had  defended  themselves  by  pointing  to  the  crimes  of  Hast- 
ings, and  by  arguing  that  abuses  so  extraordinary  justified 
extraordinary  measures.  Those  who,  by  opposing  that  bill, 
had  raised  themselves  to  the  head  of  affairs  would  naturally 
be  inclined  to  extenuate  the  evils  which  had  been  made  the 
plea  for  administering  so  violent  a  remedy ;  and  such,  in  fact, 
was  their  general  disposition.  The  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow, 
in  particular,  whose  great  place  and  force  of  intellect  gave  him 
a  weight  in  the  Government  inferior  only  to  that  of  Mr.  Pitt, 
espoused  the  cause  of  Hastings  with  indecorous  violence. 
Mr.  Pitt,  though  he  had  censured  many  parts  of  the  Indian 
system,  had  studiously  abstained  from  saying  a  word  against 
the  late  chief  of  the  Indian  Government.  To  Major  Scott, 
indeed,  the  young  minister  had  in  private  extolled  Hastings 
as  a  great,  a  wonderful  man,  who  had  the  highest  claims  on 


200  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  Government.  There  was  only  one  objection  to  granting 
all  that  so  eminent  a  servant  of  the  public  could  ask.  The 
resolution  of  censure  still  remained  on  the  journals  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  That  resolution  was,  indeed,  unjust; 
but,  till  it  was  rescinded,  could  the  minister  advise  the  King 
to  bestow  any  mark  of  approbation  on  the  person  censured  ? 
If  Major  Scott  is  to  be  trusted,  Mr.  Pitt  declared  that  this  was 
the  only  reason  which  prevented  the  advisers  of  the  Crown 
from  conferring  a  peerage  on  the  late  GovernorrGeneral. 
Mr.  Dundas  was  the  only  important  member  of  the  adminis- 
tration who  was  deeply  committed  to  a  different  view  of  the 
subject.  He  had  moved  the  resolution  which  created  the 
difficulty ;  but  even  from  him  little  was  to  be  apprehended. 
Since  he  had  presided  over  the  committee  on  Eastern  affairs, 
great  changes  had  taken  place.  He  was  surrounded  by  new 
allies ;  he  had  fixed  his  hopes  on  new  objects ;  and  whatever 
may  have  been  his  good  qualities  —  and  he  had  many  — 
flattery  itself  never  reckoned  rigid  consistency  in  the  number. 
From  the  Ministry,  therefore,  Hastings  had  every  reason 
to  expect  support ;  and  the  Ministry  was  very  powerful.  The 
Opposition  was  loud  and  vehement  against  him.  *  But  the 
Opposition,  though  formidable  from  the  wealth  and  influence 
of  some  of  its  members,  and  from  the  admirable  talents  and 
eloquence  of  others,  was  outnumbered  in  Parliament,  and 
odious  throughout  the  country.  Nor,  as  far  as  we  can  judge, 
was  the  Opposition  generally  desirous  to  engage  in  so  serious 
an  undertaking  as  the  impeachment  of  an  Indian  Governor. 
Such  an  impeachment  must  last  for  years.  It  must  impose  on 
the  chiefs  of  the  party  an  immense  load  of  labour.  Yet  it 
could  scarcely,  in  any  manner,  affect  the  event  of  the  great 
political  game.  The  followers  of  the  coalition  were  therefore 
more  inclined  to  revile  Hastings  than  to  prosecute  him.  They 
lost  no  opportunity  of  coupling  his  name  with  the  names  of 
the  most  hateful  tyrants  of  whom  history  makes  mention. 
The  wits  of  Brooks's  aimed  their  keenest  sarcasms  both  at 
his  public  and  at  his  domestic  life.  Some  fine  diamonds 


WARREN  HASTINGS  2OI 

which  he  had  presented,  as  it  was  rumoured,  to  the  royal 
family,  and  a  certain  richly  carved  ivory  bed  which  the  Queen 
had  done  him  the  honour  to  accept  from  him,  were  favourite 
subjects  of  ridicule.  One  lively  poet  proposed  that  the  great 
acts  of  the  fair  Marian's  present  husband  should  be  immortal- 
ized by  the  pencil  of  his  predecessor ;  and  that  Imhoff  should 
be  employed  to  embellish  the  House  of  Commons  with  paint- 
ings of  the  bleeding  Rohillas,  of  Nuncomar  swinging,  of 
Cheyte  Sing  letting  himself  down  to  the  Ganges.  Another, 
in  an  exquisitely  humorous  parody  of  Virgil's  third  eclogue, 
propounded  the  question  what  that  mineral  could  be  of 
which  the  rays  had  power  to  make  the  most  austere  of  prin- 
cesses the  friend  of  a  wanton.  A  third  described,  with  gay 
malevolence,  the  gorgeous  appearance  of  Mrs.  Hastings  at 
St.  James's  —  the  galaxy  of  jewels,  torn  from  Indian  Begums, 
which  adorned  her  head-dress,  her  necklace  gleaming  with  future 
votes,  and  the  depending  questions  that  shone  upon  her  ears. 
Satirical  attacks  of  this  description,  and  perhaps  a  motion  for 
a  vote  of  censure,  would  have  satisfied  the  great  body  of  the 
Opposition.  But  there  were  two  men  whose  indignation  was 
not  to  be  so  appeased  —  Philip  Francis  and  Edmund  Burke. 

Francis  had  recently  entered  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
had  already  established  a  character  there  for  industry  and  abil- 
ity. He  laboured,  indeed,  under  one  most  unfortunate  defect, 
want  of  fluency.  But  he  occasionally  expressed  himself  with 
a  dignity  and  energy  worthy  of  the  greatest  orators.  Before 
he  had  been  many  days  in  Parliament,  he  incurred  the  bitter 
dislike  of  Pitt,  who  constantly  treated  him  with  as  much  as- 
perity as  the  laws  of  debate  would  allow.  Neither  lapse  of 
years  nor  change  of  scene  had  mitigated  the  enmities  which 
Francis  had  brought  back  from  the  East.  After  his  usual 
fashion,  he  mistook  his  malevolence  for  virtue,  nursed  it,  as 
preachers  tell  us  that  we  ought  to  nurse  our  good  dispositions, 
and  paraded  it,  on  all  occasions,  with  Pharisaical  ostentation. 

The  zeal  of  Burke  was  still  fiercer ;  but  it  was  far  purer. 
Men  unable  to  understand  the  elevation  of  his  mind  have  tried 


202  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  find  out  some  discreditable  motive  for  the  vehemence  and 
pertinacity  which  he  showed  on  this  occasion.  But  they  have 
altogether  failed.  The  idle  story  that  he  had  some  private 
slight  to  revenge  has  long  been  given  up,  even  by  the  advo- 
cates of  Hastings.  Mr.  Gleig  supposes  that  Burke  was  actu- 
ated by  party  spirit,  that  he  retained  a  bitter  remembrance  of 
the  fall  of  the  coalition,  that  he  attributed  that  fall  to  the  ex- 
ertions of  the  East  India  interest,  and  that  he  considered 
Hastings  as  the  head  and  the  representative  of  that  interest. 
This  explanation  seems  to  be  sufficiently  refuted  by  a  reference 
to  dates.  The  hostility  of  Burke  to  Hastings  commenced  long 
before  the  coalition,  and  lasted  long  after  Burke  had  become 
a  strenuous  supporter  of  those  by  whom  the  coalition  had 
been  defeated.  It  began  when  Burke  and  Fox,  closely  allied 
together,  were  attacking  the  influence  of  the  Crown,  and  call- 
ing for  peace  with  the  American  republic.  It  continued  till 
Burke,  alienated  from  Fox,  and  loaded  with  the  favours  of 
the  Crown,  died,  preaching  a  crusade  against  the  French 
republic.  We  surely  cannot  attribute  to  the  events  of  1784 
an  enmity  which  began  in  1781,  and  which  retained  undi- 
minished  force  long  after  persons  far  more  deeply  implicated 
than  Hastings  in  the  events  of  1784  had  been  cordially  for- 
given. And  why  should  we  look  for  any  other  explanation  of 
Burke's  conduct  than  that  which  we  find  on  the  surface  ?  The 
plain  truth  is  that  Hastings  had  committed  some  great  crimes, 
and  that  the  thought  of  those  crimes  made  the  blood  of  Burke 
boil  in  his  veins.  For  Burke  was  a  man  in  whom  compassion 
for  suffering,  and  hatred  of  injustice  and  tyranny,  were  as 
strong  as  in  Las  Casas  or  Clarkson.  And  although  in  him, 
as  in  Las  Casas  and  in  Clarkson,  these  noble  feelings  were 
alloyed  with  the  infirmity  which  belongs  to  human  nature,  he 
is,  like  them,  entitled  to  this  great  praise,  that  he  devoted 
years  of  intense  labour  to  the  service  of  a  people  with  whom 
he  had  neither  blood  nor  language,  neither  religion  nor  man- 
ners, in  common,  and  from  whom  no  requital,  no  thanks,  no 
applause  could  be  expected. 


WARREN  HASTINGS  203 

His  knowledge  of  India  was  such  as  few,  even  of  those 
Europeans  who  have  passed  many  years  in  that  country,  have 
attained,  and  such  as  certainly  was  never  attained  by  any  pub- 
lic man  who  had  not  quitted  Europe.  He  had  studied  the 
history,  the  laws,  and  the  usages  of  the  East  with  an  industry 
such  as  is  seldom  found  united  to  so  much  genius  and  so  much 
sensibility.  Others  have  perhaps  been  equally  laborious,  and 
have  collected  an  equal  mass  of  materials.  But  the  manner 
in  which  Burke  brought  his  higher  powers  of  intellect  to  work 
on  statements  of  facts  and  on  tables  of  figures  was  peculiar 
to  himself.  In  every  part  of  those  huge  bales  of  Indian  in- 
formation which  repelled  almost  all  other  readers,  his  mind, 
at  once  philosophical  and  poetical,  found  something  to  instruct 
or  to  delight.  His  reason  analyzed  and  digested  those  vast 
and  shapeless  masses ;  his  imagination  animated  and  coloured 
them.  Out  of  darkness  and  dulness  and  confusion  he  formed 
a  multitude  of  ingenious  theories  and  vivid  pictures.  He  had, 
in  the  highest  degree,  that  noble  faculty  whereby  man  is  able 
to  live  in  the  past  and  in  the  future,  in  the  distant  and  in  the 
unreal.  India  and  its  inhabitants  were  not  to  him,  as  to  most 
Englishmen,  mere  names  and  abstractions,  but  a  real  country 
and  a  real  people.  The  burning  sun,  the  strange  vegetation 
of  the  palm  and  the  cocoa-tree,  the  rice-field,  the  tank,  the 
huge  trees,  older  than  the  Mogul  empire,  under  which  the 
village  crowds  assemble,  the  thatched  roof  of  the  peasant's 
hut,  the  rich  tracery  of  the  mosque  where  the  imaum  prays 
with  his  face  to  Mecca,  the  drums,  and  banners,  and  gaudy 
idols,  the  devotee  swinging  in  the  air,  the  graceful  maiden, 
with  the  pitcher  on  her  head,  descending  the  steps  to  the 
riverside,  the  black  faces,  the  long  beards, .  the  yellow  streaks 
of  sect,  the  turbans  and  the  flowing  robes,  the  spears  and  the 
silver  maces,  the  elephants  with  their  canopies  of  state,  the  gor- 
geous palanquin  of  the  prince,  and  the  close  litter  of  the  noble 
lady  —  all  these  things  were  to  him  as 'the  objects  amidst  which 
his  own  life  had  been  passed,  as  the  objects  which  lay  on 
the  road  between  Beaconsfield  and  St.  James's  Street.  All 


204  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

India  was  present  to  the  eye  of  his  mind  —  from  the  hall  where 
suitors  laid  gold  and  perfumes  at  the  feet  of  sovereigns  to 
the  wild  moor  where  the  gipsy  camp  was  pitched ;  from  the 
bazar,  humming  like  a  beehive  with  the  crowd  of  buyers  and 
sellers,  to  the  jungle  where  the  lonely  courier  shakes  his 
bunch  of  iron  rings  to  scare  away  the  hyaenas.  He  had 
just  as  lively  an  idea  of  the  insurrection  at  Benares  as  of 
Lord  George  Gordon's  riots,  and  of  the  execution  of  Nun- 
comar  as  of  the  execution  of  Dr.  Dodd.  Oppression  in 
Bengal  was  to  him  the  same  thing  as  oppression  in  the 
streets  of  London. 

He  saw  that  Hastings  had  been  guilty  of  some  most  unjusti- 
fiable acts.  All  that  followed  was  natural  and  necessary  in  a 
mind  like  Burke's.  His  imagination  and  his  passions,  once 
excited,  hurried  him  beyond  the  bounds  of  justice  and  good 
sense.  His  reason,  powerful  as  it  was,  became  the  slave  of 
feelings  which  it  should  have  controlled.  His  indignation, 
virtuous  in  its  origin,  acquired  too  much  of  the  character  of 
personal  aversion.  He  could  see  no  mitigating  circumstance, 
no  redeeming  merit.  His  temper,  which,  though  generous  and 
affectionate,  had  always  been  irritable,  had  now  been  made 
almost  savage  by  bodily  infirmities  and  mental  vexations.  Con- 
scious of  great  powers  and  great  virtues,  he  found  himself,  in 
age  and  poverty,  a  mark  for  the  hatred  of  a  perfidious  Court 
and  a  deluded  people.  In  Parliament  his  eloquence  was  out 
of  date.  A  young  generation,  which  knew  him  not,  had  filled 
the  House.  Whenever  he  rose  to  speak,  his  voice  was  drowned 
by  the  unseemly  interruption  of  lads  who  were  in  their  cradles 
when  his  orations  on  the  Stamp  Act  called  forth  the  applause 
of  the  great  Earl  of  Chatham.  These  things  had  produced  on 
his  proud  and  sensitive  spirit  an  effect  at  which  we  cannot 
wonder.  He  could  no  longer  discuss  any  question  with  calm- 
ness, or  make  allowance  for  honest  differences  of  opinion. 
Those  who  think  that  he  was  more  violent  and  acrimonious 
in  debates  about  India  than  on  other  occasions,  are  ill-informed 
respecting  the  last  years  of  his  life.  In  the  discussions  on 


WARREN  HASTINGS  205 

the  Commercial  Treaty  with  the  Court  of  Versailles,  on  the 
Regency,  on  the  French  Revolution,  he  showed  even  more 
virulence  than  in  conducting  the  impeachment.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  remarked  that  the  very  persons  who  called  him  a  mischie- 
vous maniac  for  condemning  in  burning  words  the  Rohilla 
war  and  the  spoliation  of  the  Begums  exalted  him  into  a 
prophet  as  soon  as  he  began  to  declaim,  with  greater  vehe- 
mence, and  not  with  greater  reason,  against  the  taking  of  the 
Bastile  and  the  insults  offered  to  Marie  Antoinette.  To  us  he 
appears  to  have  been  neither  a  maniac  in  the  former  case 
nor  a  prophet  in  the  latter,  but  in  both  cases  a  great  and  good 
man,  led  into  extravagance  by  a  sensibility  which  domineered 
over  all  his  faculties. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  personal  antipathy  of  Francis 
or  the  nobler  indignation  of  Burke  would  have  led  their  party 
to  adopt  extreme  measures  against  Hastings  if  his  own  con- 
duct had  been  judicious.  He  should  have  felt  that,  great  as 
his  public  services  had  been,  he  was  not  faultless,  and  should 
have  been  content  to  make  his  escape  without  aspiring  to  the 
honours  of  a  triumph.  He  and  his  agent  took  a  different  view. 
They  were  impatient  for  the  rewards  which,  as  they  conceived, 
were  deferred  only  till  Burke's  attack  should  be  over.  They 
accordingly  resolved  to  force  on  a  decisive  action  with  an 
enemy  for  whom,  if  they  had  been  wise,  they  would  have 
made  a  bridge  of  gold.  On  the  first  day  of  the  session  of 
1786  Major  Scott  reminded  Burke  of  the  notice  given  in  the 
preceding  year,  and  asked  whether  it  was  seriously  intended 
to  bring  any  charge  against  the  late  Governor-General.  This 
challenge  left  no  course  open  to  the  Opposition  except  to 
come  forward  as  accusers  or  to  acknowledge  themselves  calum- 
niators. The  administration  of  Hastings  had  not  been  so 
blameless,  nor  was  the  great  party  of  Fox  and  North  so  feeble, 
that  it  could  be  prudent  to  venture  on  so  bold  a  defiance.  The 
leaders  of  the  Opposition  instantly  returned  the  only  answer 
which  they  could  with  honour  return,  and  the  whole  party 
was  irrevocably  pledged  to  a  prosecution. 


206  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Burke  began  his  operations  by  applying  for  Papers.  Some 
of  the  documents  for  which  he  asked  were  refused  by  the 
ministers,  who,  in  the  debate,  held  language  such  as  strongly 
confirmed  the  prevailing  opinion  that  they  intended  to  support 
Hastings.  In  April  the  charges  were  laid  on  the  table.  They 
had  been  drawn  by  Burke  with  great  ability,  though  in  a  form 
too  much  resembling  that  of  a  pamphlet.  Hastings  was  fur- 
nished with  a  copy  of  the  accusation ;  and  it  was  intimated  to 
him  that  he  might,  if  he  thought  fit,  be  heard  in  his  own 
defence  at  the  bar  of  the  Commons. 

Here  again  Hastings  was  pursued  by  the  same  fatality  which 
had  attended  him  ever  since  the  day  when  he  set  foot  on 
English  ground.  It  seemed  to  be  decreed  that  this  man,  so 
politic  and  so  successful  in  the  East,  should  commit  nothing 
but  blunders  in  Europe.  Any  judicious  adviser  would  have  told 
him  that  the  best  thing  which  he  could  do  would  be  to  make 
an  eloquent,  forcible,  and  affecting  oration  at  the  bar  of  the 
House ;  but  that,  if  he  could  not  trust  himself  to  speak,  and 
found  it  necessary  to  read,  he  ought  to  be  as  concise  as  pos- 
sible. Audiences  accustomed  to  extemporaneous  debating  of 
the  highest  excellence  are  always  impatient  of  long  written 
compositions.  Hastings,  however,  sat  down  as  he  would  have 
done  at  the  Government-House  in  Bengal  and  prepared  a  pa- 
per of  immense  length.  That  paper,  if  recorded  on  the  consul- 
tations of  an  Indian  administration,  would  have  been  justly 
praised  as  a  very  able  minute.  But  it  was  now  out  of  place. 
It  fell  flat,  as  the  best  written  defence  must  have  fallen  flat, 
on  an  assembly  accustomed  to  the  animated  and  strenuous  con- 
flicts of  Pitt  and  Fox.  The  members,  as  soon  as  their  curiosity 
about  the  face  and  demeanour  of  so  eminent  a  stranger  was 
satisfied,  walked  away  to  dinner,  and  left  Hastings  to  tell  his 
story  till  midnight  to  the  clerks  and  the  Serjeant-at-Arms. 

All  preliminary  steps  having  been  duly  taken,  Burke,  in  the 
beginning  of  June,  brought  forward  the  charge  relating  to  the 
Rohilla  war.  He  acted  discreetly  in  placing  this  accusation  in 
the  van ;  for  Dundas  had  formerly  moved,  and  the  House  had 


WARREN  HASTINGS  207 

adopted,  a  resolution  condemning  in  the  most  severe  terms 
the  policy  followed  by  Hastings  with  regard  to  Rohilcund. 
Dundas  had  little,  or  rather  nothing,  to  say  in  defence  of  his 
own  consistency ;  but  he  put  a  bold  face  on  the  matter  and 
opposed  the  motion.  Among  other  things,  he  declared  that, 
though  he  still  thought  the  Rohilla  war  unjustifiable,  he  con- 
sidered the  services  which  Hastings  had  subsequently  rendered 
to  the  State  as  sufficient  to  atone  even  for  so  great  an  offence. 
Pitt  did  not  speak,  but  voted  with  Dundas,  and  Hastings  was 
absolved  by  a  hundred  and  nineteen  votes  against  sixty-seven. 
Hastings  was  now  confident  of  victory.  It  seemed,  indeed, 
that  he  had  reason  to  be  so.  The  Rohilla  war  was,  of  all  his 
measures,  that  which  his  accusers  might  with  greatest  advan- 
tage assail.  It  had  been  condemned  by  the  Court  of  Directors. 
It  had  been  condemned  by  the  House  of  Commons.  It  had 
been  condemned  by  Mr.  Dundas,  who  had  since  become  the 
chief  minister  of  the  Crown  for  Indian  affairs.  Yet  Burke, 
having  chosen  this  strong  ground,  had  been  completely  defeated 
on  it.  That,  having  failed  here,  he  should  succeed  on  any 
point  was  generally  thought  impossible.  It  was  rumoured  at 
the  clubs  and  coffee-houses  that  one  or  perhaps  two  more 
charges  would  be  brought  forward ;  that  if,  on  those  charges, 
the  sense  of  the  House  of  Commons  should  be  against  im- 
peachment, the  Opposition  would  let  the  matter  drop ;  that 
Hastings  would  be  immediately  raised  to  the  peerage,  decorated 
with  the  star  of  the  Bath,  sworn  of  the  Privy  Council,  and 
invited  to  lend  the  assistance  of  his  talents  and  experience  to 
the  India  Board.  Lord  Thurlow,  indeed,  some  months  before, 
had  spoken  with  contempt  of  the  scruples  which  prevented  Pitt 
from  calling  Hastings  to  the  House  of  Lords ;  and  had  even 
said  that  if  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  afraid  of  the 
Commons,  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  the  Keeper  of  the 
Great  Seal  from  taking  the  royal  pleasure  about  a  patent  of 
peerage.  The  very  title  was  chosen.  Hastings  was  to  be  Lord 
Daylesford.  For  through  all  changes  of  scene  and  changes  of 
fortune  remained  unchanged  his  attachment  to  the  spot  which 


208  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

had  witnessed  the  greatness  and  the  fall  of  his  family,  and 
which  had  borne  so  great  a  part  in  the  first  dreams  of  his 
young  ambition. 

But  in  a  very  few  days  these  fair  prospects  were  overcast. 
On  the  thirteenth  of  June,  Mr.  Fox  brought  forward,  with 
great  ability  and  eloquence,  the  charge  respecting  the  treat- 
ment of  Cheyte  Sing.  Francis  followed  on  the  same  side. 
The  friends  of  Hastings  were  in  high  spirits  when  Pitt  rose. 
With  his  usual  abundance  and  felicity  of  language,  the  Minister 
gave  his  opinion  on  the  case.  He  maintained  that  the 
Governor-General  was  justified  in  calling  on  the  Rajah  of 
Benares  for  pecuniary  assistance,  and  in  imposing  a  fine  when 
that  assistance  was  contumaciously  withheld.  He  also  thought 
that  the  conduct  of  the  Governor-General  .during  the  insurrec- 
tion had  been  distinguished  by  ability  and  presence  of  mind. 
He  censured,  with  great  bitterness,  the  conduct  of  Francis, 
both  in  India  and  in  Parliament,  as  most  dishonest  and 
malignant.  The  necessary  inference  from  Pitt's  arguments 
seemed  to  be  that  Hastings  ought  to  be  honourably  acquitted, 
and  both  the  friends  and  the  opponents  of  the  Minister  expected 
from  him  a  declaration  to  that  effect.  To  the  astonishment  of 
all  parties,  he  concluded  by  saying  that  though  he  thought  it 
right  in  Hastings  to  fine  Cheyte  Sing  for  contumacy,  yet  the 
amount  of  the  fine  was  too  great  for  the  occasion.  On  this 
ground,  and  on  this  ground  alone,  did  Mr.  Pitt,  applauding 
every  other  part  of  the  conduct  of  Hastings  with  regard  to 
Benares,  declare  that  he  should  vote  in  favour  of  Mr.  Fox's 
motion. 

The  House  was  thunderstruck ;  and  it  well  might  be  so. 
For  the  wrong  done  to  Cheyte  Sing,  even  had  it  been  as 
flagitious  as  Fox  and  Francis  contended,  was  a  trifle  when 
compared  with  the  horrors  which  had  been  inflicted  on  Rohil- 
cund.  But  if  Mr.  Pitt's  view  of  the  case  of  Cheyte  Sing  were 
correct,  there  was  no  ground  for  an  impeachment,  or  even  for 
a  vote  of  censure.  If  the  offence  of  Hastings  was  really  no 
more  than  this,  that,  having  a  right  to  impose  a  mulct,  the 


WARREN  HASTINGS  209 

amount  of  which  mulct  was  not  defined,  but  was  left  to  be 
settled  by  his  discretion,  he  had,  not  for  his  own  advantage, 
but  for  that  of  the  State,  demanded  too  much,  was  this  an 
offence  which  required  a  criminal  proceeding  of  the  highest 
solemnity,  a  criminal  proceeding,  to  which,  during  sixty  years, 
no  public  functionary  had  been  subjected  ?  We  can  see,  we 
think,  in  what  way  a  man  of  sense  and  integrity  might  have 
been  induced  to  take  any  course  respecting  Hastings  except 
the  course  which  Mr.  Pitt  took.  Such  a  man  might  have 
thought  a  great  example  necessary  for  the  preventing  of  in- 
justice and  for  the  vindicating  of  the  national  honour,  and 
might,  on  that  ground,  have  voted  for  impeachment  both  on 
the  Rohilla  charge  and  on  the  Benares  charge.  Such  a  man 
might  have  thought  that  the  offences  of  Hastings  had  been 
atoned  for  by  great  services,  and  might,  on  that  ground,  have 
voted  against  the  impeachment,  on  both  charges.  With  great 
diffidence,  we  give  it  as  our  opinion  that  the  most  correct 
course  would,  on  the  whole,  have  been  to  impeach  on  the 
Rohilla  charge  and  to  acquit  on  the  Benares  charge.  Had  the 
Benares  charge  appeared  to  us  in  the  same  light  in  which  it 
appeared  to  Mr.  Pitt,  we  should,  without  hesitation,  have  voted 
for  acquittal  on  that  charge.  The  one  course  which  it  is 
inconceivable  that  any  man  of  a  tenth  part  of  Mr.  Pitt's  abili- 
ties can  have  honestly  taken  was  the  course  which  he  took. 
He  acquitted  Hastings  on  the  Rohilla  charge.  He  softened 
down  the  Benares  charge  till  it  became  no  charge  at  all  ;  and 
then  he  pronounced  that  it  contained  matter  for  impeachment. 
Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  principal  reason  assigned 
by  the  ministry  for  not  impeaching  Hastings  on  account  of  the 
Rohilla  war  was  this,  that  the  delinquencies  of  the  early  part 
of  his  administration  had  been  atoned  for  by  the  excellence  of 
the  later  part.  Was  it  not  most  extraordinary  that  men  who 
had  held  this  language  could  afterwards  vote  that  the  later  part 
of  his  administration  furnished  matter  for  no  less  than  twenty 
articles  of  impeachment  ?  They  first  represented  the  conduct 
of  Hastings  in  1780  and  1781  as  so  highly  meritorious  that, 


210  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

like  works  of  supererogation  in  the  Catholic  theology,  it  ought 
to  be  efficacious  for  the  cancelling  of  former  offences  ;  and 
they  then  prosecuted  him  for  his  conduct  in  1780  and  1781. 

The  general  astonishment  was  the  greater,  because,  only 
twenty-four  hours  before,  the  members  on  whom  the  minister 
could  depend  had  received  the  usual  notes  from  the  Treasury 
begging  them  to  be  in  their  places  and  to  vote  against  Mr. 
Fox's  motion.  It  was  asserted  by  Mr.  Hastings  that,  early  on 
the  morning  of  the  very  day  on  which  the  debate  took  place, 
Dundas  called  on  Pitt,  woke  him,  and  was  closeted  with  him 
many  hours.  The  result  of  this  conference  was  a  determination 
to  give  up  the  late  Governor-General  to  the  vengeance  of  the 
Opposition.  It  was  impossible  even  for  the  most  powerful 
minister  to  carry  all  his  followers  with  him  in  so  strange  a 
course.  Several  persons  high  in  office,  the  Attorney-General, 
Mr.  Grenville,  and  Lord  Mulgrave,  divided  against  Mr.  Pitt. 
But  the  devoted  adherents  who  stood  by  the  head  of  the 
Government  without  asking  questions  were  sufficiently  numer- 
ous to  turn  the  scale.  A  hundred  and  nineteen  members  voted 
for  Mr.  Fox's  motion,  seventy-nine  against  it.  Dundas  silently 
followed  Pitt. 

That  good  and  great  man,  the  late  William  Wilberforce, 
often  related  the  events  of  this  remarkable  night.  He  described 
the  amazement  of  the  House  and  the  bitter  reflections  which 
were  muttered  against  the  Prime  Minister  by  some  of  the 
habitual  supporters  of  Government.  Pitt  himself  appeared  to 
feel  that  his  conduct  required  some  explanation.  He  left  the 
treasury  bench,  sat  for  some  time  next  to  Mr.  Wilberforce,  and 
very  earnestly  declared  that  he  had  found  it  impossible,  as  a 
man  of  conscience,  to  stand  any  longer  by  Hastings.  The 
business,  he  said,  was  too  bad.  Mr.  Wilberforce,  we  are  bound 
to  add,  fully  believed  that  his  friend  was  sincere,  and  that  the 
suspicions  to  which  this  mysterious  affair  gave  rise  were 
altogether  unfounded. 

Those  suspicions,  indeed,  were  such  as  it  is  painful  to 
mention.  The  friends  of  Hastings,  most  of  whom,  it  is  to  be 


WARREN  HASTINGS  211 

observed,  generally  supported  the  administration,  affirmed  that 
the  motive  of  Pitt  and  Dundas  was  jealousy.  Hastings  was 
personally  a  favourite  with  the  King.  He  was  the  idol  of  the 
East  India  Company  and  of  its  servants.  If  he  were  absolved 
by  the  Commons,  seated  among  the  Lords,  admitted  to  the 
Board  of  Control,  closely  allied  with  the  strong-minded  and 
imperious  Thurlow,  was  it  not  almost  certain  that  he  would 
soon  draw  to  himself  the  entire  management  of  Eastern  affairs  ? 
Was  it  not  possible  that  he  might  become  a  formidable  rival 
in  the  Cabinet  ?  It  had  probably  got  abroad  that  very  singular 
communications  had  taken  place  between  Thurlow  and  Major 
Scott ;  and  that  if  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  was  afraid 
to  recommend  Hastings  for  a  peerage,  the  Chancellor  was 
ready  to  take  the  responsibility  of  that  step  on  himself.  Of 
all  ministers,  Pitt  was  the  least  likely  to  submit  with  patience 
to  such  an  encroachment  on  his  functions.  If  the  Commons 
impeached  Hastings,  all  danger  was  at  an  end.  The  proceed- 
ing, however  it  might  terminate,  would  probably  last  some 
years.  In  the  meantime,  the  accused  person  would  be  excluded 
from  honours  and  public  employments,  and  could  scarcely 
venture  even  to  pay  his  duty  at  Court.  Such  were  the 
motives  attributed  by  a  great  part  of  the  public  to  the  young 
minister,  whose  ruling  passion  was  generally  believed  to  be 
avarice  of  power. 

The  prorogation  soon  interrupted  the  discussions  respecting 
Hastings.  In  the  following  year,  those  discussions  were 
resumed.  The  charge  touching  the  spoliation  of  the  Begums 
was  brought  forward  by  Sheridan  in  a  speech  which  was  so 
imperfectly  reported  that  it  may  be  said  to  be  wholly  lost,  but 
which  was,  without  doubt,  the  most  elaborately  brilliant  of  all 
the  productions  of  his  ingenious  mind.  The  impression  which 
it  produced  was  such  as  has  never  been  equalled.  He  sat  down, 
not  merely  amidst  cheering,  but  amidst  the  loud  clapping  of 
hands,  in  which  the  Lords  below  the  bar  and  the  strangers  in 
the  gallery  joined.  The  excitement  of  the  House  was  such  that 
no  other  speaker  could  obtain  a  hearing,  and  the  debate  was 


212  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

adjourned.  The  ferment  spread  fast  through  the  town.  Within 
four  and  twenty  hours,  Sheridan  was  offered  a  thousand  pounds 
for  the  copyright  of  the  speech,  if  he  would  himself  correct  it 
for  the  press.  The  impression  made  by  this  remarkable  display 
of  eloquence  on  severe  and  experienced  critics,  whose  discern- 
ment may  be  supposed  to  have  been  quickened  by  emulation, 
was  deep  and  permanent.  Mr.  Windham,  twenty  years  later, 
said  that  the  speech  deserved  all  its  fame,  and  was,  in  spite 
of  some  faults  of  taste,  such  as  were  seldom  wanting  either  in 
the  literary  or  in  the  parliamentary  performances  of  Sheridan, 
the  finest  that  had  been  delivered  within  the  memory  of  man. 
Mr.  Fox,  about  the  same  time,  being  asked  by  the  late  Lord 
Holland  what  was  the  best  speech  ever  made  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  assigned  the  first  place,  without  hesitation,  to  the 
great  oration  of  Sheridan  on  the  Oude  charge. 

When  the  debate  was  resumed,  the  tide  ran  so  strongly 
against  the  accused  that  his  friends  were  coughed  and  scraped 
down.  Pitt  declared  himself  for  Sheridan's  motion ;  and  the 
question  was  carried  by  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  votes 
against  sixty-eight. 

The  Opposition,  flushed  with  victory  and  strongly  supported 
by  the  public  sympathy,  proceeded  to  bring  forward  a  succes- 
sion of  charges  relating  chiefly  to  pecuniary  transactions.  The 
friends  of  Hastings  were  discouraged,  and,  having  now  no 
hope  of  being  able  to  avert  an  impeachment,  were  not  very 
strenuous  in  their  exertions.  At  length  the  House,  having 
agreed  to  twenty  articles  of  charge,  directed  Burke  to  go 
before  the  Lords,  and  to  impeach  the  late  Governor-General 
of  High  Crimes  and  Misdemeanours.  Hastings  was  at  the 
same  time  arrested  by  the  Serjeant-at-Arms,  and  carried  to  the 
bar  of  the  Peers. 

The  session  was  now  within  ten  days  of  its  close.  It  was, 
therefore,  impossible  that  any  progress  could  be  made  in  the 
trial  till  the  next  year.  Hastings  was  admitted  to  bail ;  and 
further  proceedings  were  postponed  till  the  Houses  should 
reassemble. 


WARREN  HASTINGS  213 

When  Parliament  met  in  the  following  winter,  the  Com- 
mons proceeded  to  elect  a  Committee  for  managing  the 
impeachment.  Burke  stood  at  the  head ;  and  with  him  were 
associated  most  of  the  leading  members  of  the  Opposition. 
But  when  the  name  of  Francis  was  read  a  fierce  contention 
arose.  It  was  said  that  Francis  and  Hastings  were  notoriously 
on  bad  terms ;  that  they  had  been  at  feud  during  many  years ; 
that  on  one  occasion  their  mutual  aversion  had  impelled  them 
to  seek  each  other's  lives ;  and  that  it  would  be  improper  and 
indelicate  to  select  a  private  enemy  to  be  a  public  accuser. 
It  was  urged  on  the  other  side  with  great  force,  particularly 
by  Mr.  Windham,  that  impartiality,  though  the  first  duty  of  a 
judge,  had  never  been  reckoned  among  the  qualities  of  an 
advocate ;  that  in  the  ordinary  administration  of  criminal  jus- 
tice among  the  English,  the  aggrieved  party,  the  very  last 
person  who  ought  to  be  admitted  into  the  jury-box,  is  the  pros- 
ecutor; that  what  was  wanted  in  a  manager  was,  not  that  he 
should  be  free  from  bias,  but  that  he  should  be  able,  well- 
informed,  energetic,  and  active.  The  ability  and  information 
of  Francis  were  admitted ;  and  the  very  animosity  with  which 
he  was  reproached,  whether  a  virtue  or  a  vice,  was  at  least  a 
pledge  for  his  energy  and  activity.  It  seems  difficult  to  refute 
these  arguments.  But  the  inveterate  hatred  borne  by  Francis 
to  Hastings  had  excited  general  disgust.  The  House  decided 
that  Francis  should  not  be  a  manager.  Pitt  voted  with  the 
majority,  Dundas  with  the  minority. 

In  the  meantime,  the  preparations  for  the  trial  had  pro- 
ceeded rapidly;  and  on  the  thirteenth  of  February,  1788,  the 
sittings  of  the  Court  commenced.  There  have  been  spectacles 
more  dazzling  to  the  eye,  more  gorgeous  with  jewellery  and 
cloth  of  gold,  more  attractive  to  grown-up  children,  than  that 
which  was  then  exhibited  at  Westminster ;  but,  perhaps,  there 
never  was  a  spectacle  so  well  calculated  to  strike  a  highly  cul- 
tivated, a  reflecting,  and  imaginative  mind.  All  the  various 
kinds  of  interest  which  belong  to  the  near  and  to  the  distant, 
to  the  present  and  to  the  past,  were  collected  on  one  spot  and 


214  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

in  one  hour.  All  the  talents  and  all  the  accomplishments 
which  are  developed  by  liberty  and  civilization  were  now  dis- 
played, with  every  advantage  that  could  be  derived  both  from 
co-operation  and  from  contrast.  Every  step  in  the  proceedings 
carried  the  mind  either  backward,  through  many  troubled  cen- 
turies, to  the  days  when  the  foundations  of  our  constitution 
were  laid ;  or  far  away,  over  boundless  seas  and  deserts,  to 
dusky  nations  living  under  strange  stars,  worshipping  strange 
gods,  and  writing  strange  characters  from  right  to  left.  The 
High  Court  of  Parliament  was  to  sit,  according  to  forms 
handed  down  from  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets,  on  an  English- 
man accused  of  exercising  tyranny  over  the  lord  of  the  holy  city 
of  Benares,  and  over  the  ladies  of  the  princely  house  of  Oude. 
The  place  was  worthy  of  such  a  trial.  It  was  the  great  hall 
of  William  Rufus,  the  hall  which  had  resounded  with  acclama- 
tions at  the  inauguration  of  thirty  kings,  the  hall  which  had 
witnessed  the  just  sentence  of  Bacon  and  the  just  absolution 
of  Somers,  the  hall  where  the  eloquence  of  Strafford  had  for 
a  moment  awed  and  melted  a  victorious  party  inflamed  with 
just  resentment,  the  hall  where  Charles  had  confronted  the 
High  Court  of  Justice  with  the  placid  courage  which  has  half 
redeemed  his  fame.  Neither  military  nor  civil  pomp  was  want- 
ing. The  avenues  were  lined  with  grenadiers.  The  streets  were 
kept  clear  by  cavalry.  The  peers,  robed  in  gold  and  ermine, 
were  marshalled  by  the  heralds  under  Garter  King-at-Arms. 
The  judges  in  their  vestments  of  state  attended  to  give  advice 
on  points  of  law.  Near  a  hundred  and  seventy  lords  —  three- 
fourths  of  the  Upper  House  as  the  Upper  House  then  was  — 
walked  in  solemn  order  from  their  usual  place  of  assembling 
to  the  tribunal.  The  junior  Baron  present  led  the  way —  George 
Eliott,  Lord  Heathfield,  recently  ennobled  for  his  memorable 
defence  of  Gibraltar  against  the  fleets  and  armies  of  France 
and  Spain.  The  long  procession  was  closed  by  the  Duke  of 
Norfolk,  Earl  Marshal  of  the  realm,  by  the  great  dignitaries, 
and  by  the  brothers  and  sons  of  the  King.  Last  of  all  came 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  conspicuous  by  his  fine  person  and  noble 


WARREN  HASTINGS  215 

bearing.  The  grey  old  walls  were  hung  with  scarlet.  The  long 
galleries  were  crowded  by  an  audience  such  as  has  rarely  ex- 
cited the  fears  or  the  emulation  of  an  orator.  There  were 
gathered  together,  from  all  parts  of  a  great,  free,  enlightened, 
and  prosperous  empire,  grace  and  female  loveliness,  wit  and 
learning,  the  representatives  of  every  science  and  of  every 
art.  There  were  seated  round  the  Queen  the  fair-haired  young 
daughters  of  the  House  of  Brunswick.  There  the  Ambassadors 
of  great  Kings  and  Commonwealths  gazed  with  admiration  on 
a  spectacle  which  no  other  country  in  the  world  could  present. 
There  Siddons,  in  the  prime  of  her  majestic  beauty,  looked 
with  emotion  on  a  scene  surpassing  all  the  imitations  of  the 
stage.  There  the  historian  of  the  Roman  Empire  thought 
of  the  days  when  Cicero  pleaded  the  cause  of  Sicily  against 
Verres,  and  when,  before  a  senate  which  still  retained  some 
show  of  freedom,  Tacitus  thundered  against  the  oppressor  of 
Africa.  There  were  seen,  side  by  side,  the  greatest  painter 
and  the  greatest  scholar  of'  the  age.  The  spectacle  had  allured 
Reynolds  from  that  easel  which  has  preserved  to  us  the  thought- 
ful foreheads  of  so  many  writers  and  statesmen  and  the  sweet 
smiles  of  so  many  noble  matrons.  It  had  induced  Parr  to  sus- 
pend his  labours  in  that  dark  and  profound  mine  from  which 
he  had  extracted  a  vast  treasure  of  erudition  —  a  treasure  too 
often  buried  in  the  earth,  too  often  paraded  with  injudicious  and 
inelegant  ostentation,  but  still  precious,  massive,  and  splendid. 
There  appeared  the  voluptuous  charms  of  her  to  whom  the 
heir  of  the  throne  had  in  secret  plighted  his  faith.  There  too 
was  she,  the  beautiful  mother  of  a  beautiful  race,  the  Saint 
Cecilia,  whose  delicate  features,  lighted  up  by  love  and  music, 
art  has  rescued  from  the  common  decay.  There  were  the 
members  of  that  brilliant  society  which  quoted,  criticized,  and 
exchanged  repartees  under  the  rich  peacock-hangings  of 
Mrs.  Montague.  And  there  the  ladies  whose  lips,  more  per- 
suasive than  those  of  Fox  himself,  had  carried  the  Westminster 
election  against  palace  and  treasury  shone  round  Georgiana, 
Duchess  of  Devonshire. 


216  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

The  Serjeants  made  proclamation.  Hastings  advanced  to 
the  bar,  and  bent  his  knee.  The  culprit  was  indeed  not  un- 
worthy of  that  great  presence.  He  had  ruled  an  extensive  and 
populous  country,  had  made  laws  and  treaties,  had  sent  forth 
armies,  had  set  up  and  pulled  down  princes.  And  in  his  high 
place  he  had  so  borne  himself  that  all  had  feared  him,  that 
most  had  loved  him,  and  that  hatred  itself  could  deny  him  no 
title  to  glory  except  virtue.  He  looked  like  a  great  man,  and 
not  like  a  bad  man.  A  person  small  and  emaciated,  yet  deriv- 
ing dignity  from  a  carriage  which,  while  it  indicated  deference 
to  the  Court,  indicated  also  habitual  self-possession  and  self- 
respect  ;  a  high  and  intellectual  forehead ;  a  brow  pensive,  but 
not  gloomy ;  a  mouth  of  inflexible  decision ;  a  face  pale  and 
worn,  but  serene,  on  which  was  written,  as  legibly  as  under 
the  picture  in  the  council-chamber  at  Calcutta,  Mem  aqua  in 
arduis  —  such  was  the  aspect  with  which  the  great  proconsul 
presented  himself  to  his  judges. 

His  counsel  accompanied  him,  men  all  of  whom  were  after- 
wards raised  by  their  talents  and  learning  to  the  highest  posts 
in  their  profession  —  the  bold  and  strong-minded  Law,  after- 
wards Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench ;  the  more  humane 
and  eloquent  Dallas,  afterwards  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common 
Pleas ;  and  Plomer,  who,  near  twenty  years  later,  successfully 
conducted  in  the  same  high  court  the  defence  of  Lord  Mel- 
ville, and  subsequently  became  Vice-chancellor  and  Master  of 
the  Rolls. 

But  neither  the  culprit  nor  his  advocates  attracted  so  much 
notice  as  the  accusers.  In  the  midst  of  the  blaze  of  red  drapery, 
a  space  had  been  fitted  up  with  green  benches  and  tables  for 
the  Commons.  The  managers,  with  Burke  at  their  head,  ap- 
peared in  full  dress.  The  collectors  of  gossip  did  not  fail  to 
remark  that  even  Fox,  generally  so  regardless  of  his  appearance, 
had  paid  to  the  illustrious  tribunal  the  compliment  of  wearing 
a  bag  and  sword.  Pitt  had  refused  to  be  one  of  the  conductors 
of  the  impeachment ;  and  his  commanding,  copious,  and  sono- 
rous eloquence  was  wanting  to  that  great  muster  of  various 


WARREN  HASTINGS  217 

talents.  Age  and  blindness  had  unfitted  Lord  North  for  the 
duties  of  a  public  prosecutor ;  and  his  friends  were  left  with- 
out the  help  of  his  excellent  sense,  his  tact,  and  his  urbanity. 
But  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  these  two  distinguished  members 
of  the  Lower  House,  trie  box  in  which  the  managers  stood  con- 
tained an  array  of  speakers  such  as  perhaps  had  not  appeared 
together  since  the  great  age  of  Athenian  eloquence.  There 
were  Fox  and  Sheridan,  the  English  Demosthenes  and  the 
English  Hyperides.  There  was  Burke,  ignorant,  indeed,  or 
negligent,  of  the  art  of  adapting  his  reasonings  and  his  style 
to  the  capacity  and  taste  of  his  hearers,  but  in  amplitude  of 
comprehension  arid  richness  of  imagination  superior  to  every 
orator,  ancient  or  modern.  There,  with  eyes  reverentially  fixed 
on  Burke,  appeared  the  finest  gentleman  of  the  age,  his  form 
developed  by  every  manly  exercise,  his  face  beaming  with  intelli- 
gence and  spirit,  the  ingenious,  the  chivalrous,  the  high-souled 
Windham.  Nor,  though  surrounded  by  such  men,  did  the 
youngest  manager  pass  unnoticed.  At  an  age  when  most 
of  those  who  distinguish  themselves  in  life  are  still  contend- 
ing for  prizes  and  fellowships  at  college,  he  had  won  for 
himself  a  conspicuous  place  in  Parliament.  No  advantage  of 
fortune  or  connection  was  wanting  that  could  set  off  to  the 
height  his  splendid  talents  and  his  unblemished  honour.  At 
twenty-three  he  had  been  thought  worthy  to  be  ranked  with  the 
veteran  statesmen  who  appeared  as  the  delegates  of  the  British 
Commons  at  the  bar  of  the  British  nobility.  All  who  stood  at 
that  bar,  save  him  alone,  are  gone  —  culprit,  advocates,  accusers. 
To  the  generation  which  is  now  in  the  vigour  of  life,  he  is  the 
sole  representative  of  a  great  age  which  has  passed  away.  But 
those  who,  within  the  last  ten  years,  have  listened  with  delight, 
till  the  morning  sun  shone  on  the  tapestries  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  to  the  lofty  arid  animated  eloquence  of  Charles  Earl 
Grey,  are  able  to  form  some  estimate  of  the  powers  of  a  race 
of  men  among  whom  he  was  not  the  foremost. 

The  charges  and  the  answers  of  Hastings  were  first  read. 
The  ceremony  occupied  two  whole  days,  and  was  rendered  less 


218  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

tedious  than  it  would  otherwise  have  been  by  the  silver  voice 
and  just  emphasis  of  Cowper,  the  clerk  of  the  court,  a  near 
relation  of  the  amiable  poet.  On  the  third  day  Burke  rose. 
Four  sittings  were  occupied  by  his  opening  speech,  which  was 
intended  to  be  a  general  introduction  to  all  the  charges.  With 
an  exuberance  of  thought  and  a  splendour  of  diction  which 
more  than  satisfied  the  highly  raised  expectation  of  the  audience, 
he  described  the  character  and  institutions  of  the  natives  of 
India,  recounted  the  circumstances  in  which  the  Asiatic  empire 
of  Britain  had  originated,  and  set  forth  the  constitution  of  the 
Company  and  of  the  English  Presidencies.  Having  thus  at- 
tempted to  communicate  to  his  hearers  an  idea  of  Eastern 
society  as  vivid  as  that  which  existed  in  his  own  mind,  he 
proceeded  to  arraign  the  administration  of  Hastings  as  syste- 
matically conducted  in  defiance  of  morality  and  public  law. 
The  energy  and  pathos  of  the  great  orator  extorted  expres- 
sions of  unwonted  admiration  from  the  stern  and  hostile 
Chancellor,  and,  for  a  moment,  seemed  to  pierce  even  .the 
resolute  heart  of  the  defendant.  The  ladies  in  the  galleries, 
unaccustomed  to  such  displays  of  eloquence,  excited  by  the 
solemnity  of  the  occasion,  and  perhaps  not  unwilling  to  dis- 
play their  taste  and  sensibility,  were  in  a  state  of  uncontrollable 
emotion.  Handkerchiefs  were  pulled  out ;  smelling-bottles  were 
handed  round  ;  hysterical  sobs  and  screams  were  heard ;  and 
Mrs.  Sheridan  was  carried  out  in  a  fit.  At  length  the  orator 
concluded.  Raising  his  voice  till  the  old  arches  of  Irish  oak 
resounded,  "  Therefore,"  said  he,  "  hath  it  with  all  confidence 
been  ordered  by  the  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  that  I  im- 
peach Warren  Hastings  of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanours. 
I  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  the  Commons'  House  of  Par- 
liament, whose  trust  he  has  betrayed.  I  impeach  him  in  the 
name  of  the  English  nation,  whose  ancient  honour  he  has  sul- 
lied. I  impeach  him  in  the  name  of  the  people  of  India, 
whose  rights  he  has  trodden  under  foot,  and  whose  country 
he  has  turned  into  a  desert.  Lastly,  in  the  name  of  human 
nature  itself,  in  the  name  of  both  sexes,  in  the  name  of  every 


WARREN  HASTINGS  219 

age,  in  the  name  of  every  rank,  I  impeach  the  common  enemy 
and  oppressor  of  all." 

When  the  deep  murmur  of  various  emotions  had  subsided, 
Mr.  Fox  rose  to  address  the  Lords  respecting  the  course  of  pro- 
ceeding to  be  followed.  The  wish  of  the  accusers  was  that  the 
Court  would  bring  to  a  close  the  investigation  of  the  first  charge 
before  the  second  was  opened.  The  wish  of  Hastings  and  of  his 
counsel  was  that  the  managers  should  open  all  the  charges,  and 
produce  all  the  evidence  for  the  prosecution,  before  the  defence 
began.  The  Lords  retired  to  their  own  House  to  consider 
the  question.  The  Chancellor  took  the  side  of  Hastings.  Lord 
Loughborough,  who  was  now  in  opposition,  supported  the  de- 
mand of  the  managers.  The  division  showed  which  way  the  in- 
clination of  the  tribunal  leaned.  A  majority  of  near  three  to  one 
decided  in  favour  of  the  course  for  which  Hastings  contended. 

When  the  Court  sat  again,  Mr.  Fox,  assisted  by  Mr.  Grey, 
opened  the  charge  respecting  Cheyte  Sing,  and  several  days 
were  spent  in  reading  papers  and  hearing  witnesses.  The  next 
article  was  that  relating  to  the  Princesses  of  Oude.  The 
conduct  of  this  part  of  the  case  was  intrusted  to  Sheridan. 
The  curiosity  of  the  public  to  hear  him  was  unbounded.  His 
sparkling  and  highly  finished  declamation  lasted  two  days ; 
but  the  Hall  was  crowded  to  suffocation  during  the  whole 
time.  It  was  said  that  fifty  guineas  had  been  paid  for  a  single 
ticket.  Sheridan,  when  he  concluded,  contrived,  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  stage  effect  which  his  father  might  have  envied,  to 
sink  back,  as  if  exhausted,  into  the  arms  of  Burke,  who 
hugged  him  with  the  energy  of  generous  admiration. 

June  was  now  far  advanced.  The  session  could  not  last 
much  longer ;  and  the  progress  which  had  been  made  in  the 
impeachment  was  not  very  satisfactory.  There  were  twenty 
charges.  On  two  only  of  these  had  even  the  case  for  the 
prosecution  been  heard  ;  and  it  was  now  a  year  since  Hastings 
had  been  admitted  to  bail. 

The  interest  taken  by  the  public  in  the  trial  was  great  when 
the  Court  began  to  sit,  and  rose  to  the  height  when  Sheridan 


220  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

spoke  on  the  charge  relating  to  the  Begums.  From  that  time 
the  excitement  went  down  fast.  The  spectacle  had  lost  the 
attraction  of  novelty.  The  great  displays  of  rhetoric  were 
over.  What  was  behind  was  not  of  a  nature  to  entice  men  of 
letters  from  their  books  in  the  morning,  or  to  tempt  ladies 
who  had  left  the  masquerade  at  two  to  be  out  of  bed  before 
eight.  There  remained  examinations  and  cross-examinations. 
There  remained  statements  of  accounts.  There  remained  the 
reading  of  papers  filled  with  words  unintelligible  to  English 
ears,  with  lacs  and  crores,  zemindars  and  aumils,  sunnuds  and 
perwannahs,  jaghires  and  nuzzurs.  There  remained  bickerings, 
not  always  carried  on  with  the  best  taste  or  the  best  temper, 
between  the  managers  of  the  impeachment  and  the  counsel  for 
the  defence,  particularly  between  Mr.  Burke  and  Mr.  Law. 
There  remained  the  endless  marches  and  countermarches  of 
the  Peers  between  their  House  and  the  Hall ;  for  as  often  as 
a  point  of  law  was  to  be  discussed,  their  Lordships  retired  to 
discuss  it  apart ;  and  the  consequence  was,  as  a  Peer  wittily 
said,  that  the  judges  walked  and  the  trial  stood  still. 

It  is  to  be  added  that,  in  the  spring  of  1788,  when  the  trial 
commenced,  no  important  question,  either  of  domestic  or 
foreign  policy,  occupied  the  public  mind.  The  proceeding  in 
Westminster  Hall,  therefore,  naturally  attracted  most  of  the 
attention  of  Parliament  and  of  the  country.  It  was  the  one 
great  event  of  that  season.  But  in  the  following  year  the 
King's  illness,  the  debates  on  the  Regency,  the  expectation  of 
a  change  of  ministry,  completely  diverted  public  attention 
from  Indian  affairs ;  and  within  a  fortnight  after  George  the 
Third  had  returned  thanks  in  St.  Paul's  for  his  recovery,  the 
States-General  of  France  met  at  Versailles.  In  the  midst  of 
the  agitation  produced  by  these  events,  the  impeachment  was 
for  a  time  almost  forgotten. 

The  trial  in  the  Hall  went  on  languidly.  In  the  session  of 
1788,  when  the  proceedings  had  the  interest  of  novelty,  and 
when  the  Peers  had  little  other  business  before  them,  only 
thirty-five  days  were  given  to  the  impeachment.  In  1789,  the 


WARREN  HASTINGS  221 

Regency  Bill  occupied  the  Upper  House  till  the  session  was 
far  advanced. '  When  the  King  recovered  the  circuits  were 
beginning.  The  judges  left  town ;  the  Lords  waited  for  the 
return  of  the  oracles  of  jurisprudence ;  and  the  consequence 
was  that  during  the  whole  year  only  seventeen  days  were 
given  to  the  case  of  Hastings.  It  was  clear  that  the  matter 
would  be  protracted  to  a  length  unprecedented  in  the  annals 
of  criminal  law. 

In  truth,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  impeachment,  though 
it  is  a  fine  ceremony,  and  though  it  may  have  been  useful  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  is  not  a  proceeding  from  which  much 
good  can  now  be  expected.  Whatever  confidence  may  be 
placed  in  the  decision  of  the  Peers  on  an  appeal  arising  out  of 
ordinary  litigation,  it  is  certain  that  no  man  has  the  least  con- 
fidence in  their  impartiality  when  a  great  public  functionary, 
charged  with  a  great  state  crime,  is  brought  to  their  bar. 
They  are  all  politicians.  There  is  hardly  one  among  them 
whose  vote  on  an  impeachment  may  not  be  confidently  pre- 
dicted before  a  witness  has  been  examined ;  and  even  if  it 
were  possible  to  rely  on  their  justice,  they  would  still  be  quite 
unfit  to  try  such  a  cause  as  that  of  Hastings.  They  sit  only 
during  half  the  year.  They  have  to  transact  much  legislative 
and  much  judicial  business.  The  law-lords,  whose  advice  is 
required  to  guide  the  unlearned  majority,  are  employed  daily 
in  administering  justice  elsewhere.  It  is  impossible,  therefore, 
that  during  a  busy  session  the '  Upper  House  should  give 
more  than  a  few  days  to  an  impeachment.  To  expect  that 
their  Lordships  would  give  up  partridge-shooting  in  order  to 
bring  the  greatest  delinquent  to  speedy  justice,  or  to  relieve 
accused  innocence  by  speedy  acquittal,  would  be  unreasonable 
indeed.  A  well-constituted  tribunal,  sitting  regularly  six  days 
in  the  week,  and  nine  hours  in  the  day,  would  have  brought 
the  trial  of  Hastings  to  a  close  in  less  than  three  months. 
The  Lords  had  not  finished  their  work  in  seven  years. 

The  result  ceased  to  be  matter  of  doubt  from  the  time 
when  the  Lords  resolved  that  they  would  be  guided  by  the 


222  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

rules  of  evidence  which  are  received  in  the  inferior  courts  of 
the  realm.  Those  rules,  it  is  well  known,  exclude  much  in- 
formation which  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  determine  the 
conduct  of  any  reasonable  man  in  the  most  important  transac- 
tions of  private  life.  These  rules  at  every  assize  save  scores 
of  culprits  whom  judges,  jury,  and  spectators  firmly  believe 
to  be  guilty.  But  when  those  rules  were  rigidly  applied  to 
offences  committed  many  years  before,  ,at  the  distance  of 
many  thousands  of  miles,  conviction  was,  of  course,  out  of  the 
question.  We  do  not  blame  the  accused  and  his  counsel  for 
availing  themselves  of  every  legal  advantage  in  order  to  obtain 
an  acquittal.  But  it  is  clear  that  an  acquittal  so  obtained 
cannot  be  pleaded  in  bar  of  the  judgment  of  history. 

Several  attempts  were  made  by  the  friends  of  Hastings  to 
put  a  stop  to  the  trial.  In  1789  they  proposed  a  vote  of 
censure  upon  Burke,  for  some  violent  language  which  he  had 
used  respecting  the  death  of  Nuncomar  and  the  connection 
between  Hastings  and  Impey,  Burke  was  then  unpopular  in 
the  last  degree  both  with  the  House  and  with  the  country. 
The  asperity  and  indecency  of  some  expressions  which  he  had 
used  during  the  debates  on  the  Regency  had  annoyed  even 
his  warmest  friends.  The  vote  of  censure  was  carried ;  and 
those  who  had  moved  it  hoped  that  the  managers  would  resign 
in  disgust.  Burke  was  deeply  hurt.  But  his  zeal  for  what  he 
considered  as  the  cause  of  justice  and  mercy  triumphed  over 
his  personal  feelings.  He  received  the  censure  of  the  House 
with  dignity  and  meekness,  and  declared  that  no  personal 
mortification  or  humiliation  should  induce  him  to  flinch  from 
the  sacred  duty  which  he  had  undertaken. 

In  the  following  year  the  Parliament  was  dissolved,  and 
the  friends  of  Hastings  entertained  a  hope  that  the  new 
House  of  Commons  might  not  be  disposed  to  go  on  with  the 
impeachment.  They  began  by  maintaining  that  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding was  terminated  by  the  dissolution.  Defeated  on  this 
point,  they  made  a  direct  motion  that  the  impeachment  should 
be  dropped ;  but  they  were  defeated  by  the  combined  forces 


WARREN  HASTINGS  223 

of  the  Government  and  the  Opposition.  It  was,  however, 
resolved  that,  for  the  sake  of  expedition,  many  of  the  articles 
should  be  withdrawn.  In  truth,  had  not  some  such  measure 
been  adopted,  the  trial  would  have  lasted  till  the  defendant 
was  in  his  grave. 

At  length,  in  the  spring  of  1795,  the  decision  was  pro- 
nounced, near  eight  years  after  Hastings  had  been  brought 
by  the  Serjeant-at-Arms  of  the  Commons  to  the  bar  of  the 
Lords.  On  the  last  day  of  this  great  procedure  the  public 
curiosity,  long  suspended,  seemed  to  be  revived.  Anxiety 
about  the  judgment  there  could  be  none ;  for  it  had  been 
fully  ascertained  that  there  was  a  great  majority  for  the  de- 
fendant. Nevertheless  many  wished  to  see  the  pageant,  and 
the  Hall  was  as  much  crowded  as  on  the  first  day.  But  those 
who,  having  been  present  on  the  first  day,  now  bore  a  part  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  last,  were  few ;  and  most  of  those  few 
were  altered  men. 

As  Hastings  himself  said,  the  arraignment  had  taken  place 
before  one  generation,  and  the  judgment  was  pronounced  by 
another.  The  spectator  could  not  look  at  the  woolsack,  or  at 
the  red  benches  of  the  Peers,  or  at  the  green  benches  of  the 
Commons,  without  seeing  something  that  reminded  him  of 
the  instability  of  all  human  things  —  of  the  instability  of  power 
and  fame  and  life,  of  the  more  lamentable  instability  of  friend- 
ship. The  great  seal  was  borne  before  Lord  Loughborough, 
who,  when  the  trial  commenced,  was  a  fierce  opponent  of 
Mr.  Pitt's  government,  and  who  was  now  a  member  of  that 
government,  while  Thurlow,  who  presided  in  the  court  when 
it  first  sat,  estranged  from  all  his  old  allies,  sat  scowling 
among  the  junior  barons.  Of  about  a  hundred  and  sixty 
nobles  who  walked  in  the  procession  on  the  first  day,  sixty 
had  been  laid  in  their  family  vaults.  Still  more  affecting 
must  have  been  the  sight  of  the  managers'  box.  What  had 
become  of  that  fair  fellowship,  so  closely  bound  together  by 
public  and  private  ties,  so  resplendent  with  every  talent  and 
accomplishment  ?  It  had  been  scattered  by  calamities  more 


224  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

bitter  than  the  bitterness  of  death.  The  great  chiefs  were 
still  living,  and  still  in  the  full  vigour  of  their  genius.  But 
their  friendship  was  at  an  end.  It  had  been  violently  and  pub- 
licly dissolved,  with  tears  and  stormy  reproaches.  If  those 
men,  once  so  dear  to  each  other,  were  now  compelled  to 
meet  for  the  purpose  of  managing  the  impeachment,  they 
met  as  strangers  whom  public  business  had  brought  together, 
and  behaved  to  each  other  with  cold  and  distant  civility. 
Burke  had  in  his  vortex  whirled  away  Windham.  Fox  had 
been  followed  by  Sheridan  and  Grey. 

Only  twenty-nine  Peers  voted.  Of  these  only  six  found 
Hastings  guilty  on  the  charges  relating  to  Cheyte  Sing  and 
to  the  Begums.  On  other  charges,  the  majority  in  his  favour 
was  still  greater.  On  some,  he  was  unanimously  absolved.  He 
was  then  called  to  the  bar,  was  informed  from  the  woolsack 
that  the  Lords  had  acquitted  him,  and  was  solemnly  discharged. 
He  bowed  respectfully  and  retired. 

We  have  said  that  the  decision  had  been  fully  expected. 
It  was  also  generally  approved.  At  the  commencement  of 
the  trial  there  had  been  a  strong  and  indeed  unreasonable 
feeling  against  Hastings.  At  the  close  of  the  trial  there  was 
a  feeling  equally  strong  and  equally  unreasonable  in  his  fa- 
vour. One  cause  of  the  change  was,  no  doubt,  what  is  com- 
monly called  the  fickleness  of  the  multitude,  but  what  seems 
to  us  to  be  merely  the  general  law  of  human  nature.  Both 
in  individuals  and  in  masses  violent  excitement  is  always  fol- 
lowed by  remission,  and  often  by  reaction.  We  are  all  inclined 
to  depreciate  whatever  we  have  overpraised,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  show  undue  indulgence  where  we  have  shown  undue 
rigour.  It  was  thus  in  the  case  of  Hastings.  The  length  of 
his  trial,  moreover,  made  him  an  object  of  compassion.  It 
was  thought,  and  not  without  reason,  that,  even  if  he  was 
guilty,  he  was  still  an  ill-used  man,  and  that  an  impeachment 
of  eight  years  was  more  than  a  sufficient  punishment.  It 
was  also  felt  that,  though  in  the  ordinary  course  of  criminal 
law  a  defendant  is  not  allowed  to  set  off  his  good  actions 


WARREN  HASTINGS  225 

against  his  crimes,  a  great  political  cause  should  be  tried  on 
different  principles,  and  that  a  man  who  had  governed  an  em- 
pire during  thirteen  years  might  have  done  some  very  repre- 
hensible things,  and  yet  might  be,  on  the  whole,  deserving 
of  rewards  and  honours  rather  than  of  fine  and  imprisonment. 
The  press,  an  instrument  neglected  by  the  prosecutors,  was 
used  by  Hastings  and  his  friends  with  great  effect.  Every 
ship,  too,  that  arrived  from  Madras  or  Bengal,  brought  a 
cuddy  full  of  his  admirers.  Every  gentleman  from  India 
spoke  of  the  late  Governor-General  as  having  deserved  bet- 
ter, and  having  been  treated  worse,  than  any  man  living. 
The  effect  of  this  testimony,  unanimously  given  by  all  per- 
sons who  knew  the  East,  was  naturally  very  great.  Retired 
members  of  the  Indian  services,  civil  and  military,  were  set- 
tled in  all  corners  of  the  kingdom.  Each  of  them  was,  of 
course,  in  his  own  little  circle,  regarded  as  an  oracle  on  an 
Indian  question ;  and  they  were,  with  scarcely  one  exception, 
the  zealous  advocates  of  Hastings.  It  is  to  be  added  that  the 
numerous  addresses  to  the  late  Governor-General  which  his 
friends  in  Bengal  obtained  from  the  natives  and  transmitted 
to  England,  made  a  considerable  impression.  To  these  ad- 
dresses we  attach  little  or  no  importance.  That  Hastings 
was  beloved  by  the  people  whom  he  governed  is  true  ;  but 
the  eulogies  of  pundits,  zemindars,  Mahommedan  doctors, 
do  not.  prove  it  to  be  true.  For  an  English  collector  or 
judge  would  have  found  it  easy  to  induce  any  native  who 
could  write  to  sign  a  panegyric  on  the  most  odious  ruler 
that  ever  was  in  India.  It  was  said  that  at  Benares,  the 
very  place  at  which  the  acts  set  forth  in  the  first  article  of 
impeachment  had  been  committed,  the  natives  had  erected  a 
temple  to  Hastings ;  and  this  story  excited  a  strong  sensation 
in  England.  Burke 's  observations  on  the  apotheosis  were  ad- 
mirable. He  saw  no  reason  for  astonishment,  he  said,  in  the 
incident  which  had  been  represented  as  so  striking.  He  knew 
something  of  the  mythology  of  the  Brahmins.  He  knew  that 
as  they  worshipped  some  gods  from  love,  so  they  worshipped 


226  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

others  from  fear.  He  knew  that  they  erected  shrines,  not 
only  to  the  benignant  deities  of  light  and  plenty,  but  also  to 
the  fiends  who  preside  over  smallpox  and  murder ;  nor  did 
he  at  all  dispute  the  claim  of  Mr.  Hastings  to  be  admitted 
into  such  a  Pantheon.  This  reply  has  always  struck  us  as 
one  of  the  finest  that  ever  was  made  in  Parliament.  It  is  a 
grave  and  forcible  argument,  decorated  by  the  most  brilliant 
wit  and  fancy. 

•  Hastings  was,  however,  safe.  But  in  everything  except 
character  he  would  have  been  far  better  off  if,  when  first 
impeached,  he  had  at  once  pleaded  guilty  and  paid  a  fine 
of  fifty  thousand  pounds.  He  was  a  ruined  man.  The  legal 
expenses  of  his  defence  had  been  enormous.  The  expenses 
which  did  not  appear  in  his  attorney's  bill  were  perhaps  larger 
still.  Great  sums  had  been  paid  to  Major  Scott.  Great  sums 
had  been  laid  out  in  bribing  newspapers,  rewarding  pamphlet- 
eers, and  circulating  tracts.  Burke,  so  early  as  1790,  declared 
in  the  House  of  Commons  that  twenty  thousand  pounds  had 
been  employed  in  corrupting  the  press.  It  is  certain  that  no 
controversial  weapon,  from  the  gravest  reasoning  to  the  coars- 
est ribaldry,  was  left  unemployed.  Logan  defended  the  accused 
Governor  with  great  ability  in  prose.  For  the  lovers  of  verse, 
the  speeches  of  the  managers  were  burlesqued  in  Simpkin's 
letters.  It  is,  we  are  afraid,  indisputable  that  Hastings  stooped 
so  low  as  to  court  the  aid  of  that  malignant  and  filthy^  baboon ' 
John  Williams,  who  called  himself  Anthony  Pasquin.  It  was 
necessary  to  subsidize  such  allies  largely.  The  private  hoards 
of  Mrs.  Hastings  had  disappeared.  It  is  said  that  the  banker 
to  whom  they  had  been  intrusted  had  failed.  Still,  if  Hastings 
had  practised  strict  economy,  he  would,  after  all  his  losses, 
have  had  a  moderate  competence ;  but  in  the  management  of 
his  private  affairs  he  was  imprudent.  The  dearest  wish  of  his 
heart  had  always  been  to  regain  Daylesford.  At  length,  in 
the  very  year  in  which  his  trial  commenced,  the  wish  was 
accomplished ;  and  the  domain,  alienated  more  than  seventy 
years  before,  returned  to  the  descendant  of  its  old  lords.  But 


WARREN  HASTINGS  227 

the  manor-house  was  a  ruin  ;  and  the  grounds  round  it  had, 
during  many  years,  been  utterly  neglected.  Hastings  proceeded 
to  build,  to  plant,  to  form  a  sheet  of  water,  to  excavate  a  grotto  ; 
and,  before  he  was  dismissed  from  the  bar  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  he  expended  more  than  forty  thousand  pounds  in 
adorning  his  seat. 

The  general  feeling  both  of  the  Directors  and  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  East  India  Company  was  that  he  had  great 
claims  on  them,  that  his  services  to  them  had  been  eminent, 
and  that  his  misfortunes  had  been  the  effect  of  his  zeal  for 
their  interest.  His  friends  in  Leadenhall  Street  proposed  to 
reimburse  him  the  costs  of  his  trial,  and  to  settle  on  him  an 
annuity  of  five  thousand  pounds  a  year.  But  the  consent  of 
the  Board  of  Control  was  necessary ;  and  at  the  head  of  the 
Board  of  Control  was  Mr.  Dundas,  who  had  himself  been  a 
party  to  the  impeachment,  who  had,  on  that  account,  been 
reviled  with  great  bitterness  by  the  adherents  of  Hastings,  and 
who,  therefore,  was  not  in  a  very  complying  mood.  He  refused 
to  consent  to  what  the  Directors  suggested.  The  Directors 
remonstrated.  A  long  controversy  followed.  Hastings,  in  the 
meantime,  was  reduced  to  such  distress  that  he  could  hardly 
pay  his  weekly  bills.  At  length  a  compromise  was  made.  An 
annuity  for  life  of  four  thousand  pounds  was  settled  on  Hast- 
ings ;  and  in  order  to  enable  him  to  meet  pressing  demands, 
he  was  to  receive  ten  years'  annuity  in  advance.  The  Company 
was  also  permitted  to  lend  him  fifty  thousand  pounds,  to  be 
repaid  by  instalments  without  interest.  This  relief,  though 
given  in  the  most  absurd  manner,  was  sufficient  to  enable  the 
retired  Governor  to  live  in  comfort,  and  even  in  luxury,  if  he 
had  been  a  skilful  manager.  But  he  was  careless  and  profuse, 
and  was  more  than  once  under  the  necessity  of  applying  to 
the  Company  for  assistance,  which  was  liberally  given. 

He  had  security  and  affluence,  but  not  the  power  and  dignity 
which,  when  he  landed  from  India,  he  had  reason  to  expect. 
He  had  then  looked  forward  to  a  coronet,  a  red  riband,  a  seat 
at  the  Council  Board,  an  office  at  Whitehall.  He  was  then 


228  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

only  fifty-two,  and  might  hope  for  many  years  of  bodily  and 
mental  vigour.  The  case  was  widely  different  when  he  left 
the  bar  of  the  Lords.  He  was  now  too  old  a  man  to  turn  his 
mind  to  a  new  class  of  studies  and  duties.  He  had  no  chance 
of  receiving  any  mark  of  royal  favour  while  Mr.  Pitt  remained 
in  power ;  and  when  Mr.  Pitt  retired,  Hastings  was  approaching 
his  seventieth  year. 

Once,  and  only  once,  after  his  acquittal,  he  interfered  in 
politics ;  and  that  interference  was  not  much  to  his  honour. 
In  1804  he  exerted  himself  strenuously  to  prevent  Mr. 
Addington,  against  whom  Fox  and  Pitt  had  combined,  from 
resigning  the  Treasury.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  man 
so  able  and  energetic  as  Hastings  can  have  thought  that,  when 
Bonaparte  was  at  Boulogne  with  a  great  army,  the  defence  of 
our  island  could  safely  be  intrusted  to  a  ministry  which  did 
not  contain  a  single  person  whom  flattery  could  describe  as  a 
great  statesman.  It  is  also  certain  that,  on  the  important 
question  which  had  raised  Mr.  Addington  to  power,  and  on 
which  he  differed  from  both  Fox  and  Pitt,  Hastings,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  agreed  with  Fox  and  Pitt,  and  was 
decidedly  opposed  to  Addington.  Religious  intolerance  has 
never  been  the  vice  of  the  Indian  service,  and  certainly  was 
not  the  vice  of  Hastings.  But  Mr.  Addington  had  treated 
him  with  marked  favour.  Fox  had  been  a  principal  manager 
of  the  impeachment.  To  Pitt  it  was  owing  that  there  had 
been  an  impeachment ;  and  Hastings,  we  fear,  was  on  this 
occasion  guided  by  personal  considerations,  rather  than  by  a 
regard  to  the  public  interest. 

The  last  twenty-four  years  of  his  life  were  chiefly  passed  at 
Daylesford.  He  amused  himself  with  embellishing  his  grounds, 
riding  fine  Arab  horses,  fattening  prize-cattle,  and  trying  to 
rear  Indian  animals  and  vegetables  in  England.  He  sent  for 
seeds  of  a  very  fine  custard-apple,  from  the  garden  of  what 
had  once  been  his  own  villa,  among  the  green  hedgerows  of 
Allipore.  He  tried  also  to  naturalize  in  Worcestershire  the 
delicious  leechee,  almost  the  only  fruit  of  Bengal  which 


WARREN  HASTINGS  229 

deserves  to  be  regretted  even  amidst  the  plenty  of  Covent 
Garden.  The  Mogul  emperors,  in  the  time  of  their  greatness, 
had  in  vain  attempted  to  introduce  into  Hindostan  the  goat  of 
the  table-land  of  Thibet,  whose  down  supplies  the  looms  of 
Cashmere  with  the  materials  of  the  finest  shawls.  Hastings 
tried,  with  no  better  fortune,  to  rear  a  breed  at  Daylesford ; 
nor  does  he  seem  to  have  succeeded  better  with  the  cattle  of 
Bootan,  whose  tails  are  in  high  esteem  as  the  best  fans  for 
brushing  away  the  mosquitoes. 

Literature  divided  his  attention  with  his  conservatories  and 
his  menagerie.  He  had  always  loved  books,  and  they  were 
now  necessary  to  him.  Though  not  a  poet  in  any  high  sense 
of  the  word,  he  wrote  neat  and  polished  lines  with  great 
facility,  and  was  fond  of  exercising  this  talent.  Indeed,  if  we 
must  speak  out,  he  seems  to  have  been  more  of  a  Trissotin 
than  was  to  be  expected  from  the  powers  of  his  mind  and 
from  the  great  part  which  he  had  played  in  life.  We  are 
assured  in  these  Memoirs  that  the  first  thing  which  he  did  in 
the  morning  was  to  write  a  copy  of  verses.  When  the  family 
and  guests  assembled,  the  poem  made  its  appearance  as  regu- 
larly as  the  eggs  and  rolls ;  and  Mr.  Gleig  requires  us  to  believe 
that,  if  from  any  accident  Hastings  came  to  the  breakfast-table 
without  one  of  his  charming  performances  in  his  hand,  the 
omission  was  felt  by  all  as  a  grievous  disappointment.  Tastes 
differ  widely.  For  ourselves,  we  must  say  that,  however  good 
the  breakfasts  at  Daylesford  may  have  been  —  and  we  are 
assured  that  the  tea  was  of  the  most  aromatic  flavour,  and  that 
neither  tongue  nor  venison-pasty  was  wanting — we  should 
have  thought  the  reckoning  high  if  we  had  been  forced  to  earn 
our  repast  by  listening  every  day  to  a  new  madrigal  or  sonnet 
composed  by  our  host.  We  are  glad,  however,  that  Mr.  Gleig 
has  preserved  this  little  feature  of  character,  though  we  think 
it  by  no  means  a  beauty.  It  is  good  to  be  often  reminded  of 
the  inconsistency  of  human  nature,  and  to  learn  to  look  with- 
out wonder  or  disgust  on  the  weaknesses  which  are  found  in 
the  strongest  minds.  Dionysius  in  old  times,  Frederic  in  the 


230  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

last  century,  with  capacity  and  vigour  equal  to  the  conduct,  of 
the  greatest  affairs,  united  all  the  little  vanities  and  affectations 
of  provincial  blue-stockings.  These  great  examples  may  con- 
sole the  admirers  of  Hastings  for  the  affliction  of  seeing  him 
reduced  to  the  level  of  the  Hayleys  and  Sewards. 

When  Hastings  had  passed  many  years  in  retirement,  and 
had  long  outlived  the  common  age  of  men,  he  again  became 
for  a  short  time  an  object  of  general  attention.  In  1813  the 
charter  of  the  East  India  Company  was  renewed ;  and  much 
discussion  about  Indian  affairs  took  place  in  Parliament.  It 
was  determined  to  examine  witnesses  at  the  bar  of  the  Com- 
mons ;  and  Hastings  was  ordered  to  attend.  He  had  appeared 
at  that  bar  once  before.  It  was  when  he  read  his  answer  to. 
the  charges  which  Burke  had  laid  on  the  table.  Since  that 
time  twenty-seven  years  had  elapsed  ;  public  feeling  had  under- 
gone a  complete  change  ;  the  nation  had  now  forgotten  his 
faults,  and  remembered  only  his  services.  The  reappearance, 
too,  of  a  man  who  had  been  among  the  most  distinguished  of 
a  generation  that  had  passed  away,  who  now  belonged  to 
history,  and  who  seemed  to  have  risen  from  the  dead,  could 
not  but  produce  a  solemn  and  pathetic  effect.  The  Commons 
received  him  with  acclamations,  ordered  a  chair  to  be  set  for 
him,  and,  when  he  retired,  rose  and  uncovered.  There  were, 
indeed,  a  few  who  did  not  sympathize  with  the  general  feeling. 
One  or  two  of  the  managers  of  the  impeachment  were  present. 
They  sat  in  the  same  seats  which  they  had  occupied  when 
they  had  been  thanked  for  the  services  which  they  had 
rendered  in  Westminster  Hall :  for,  by  the  courtesy  of  the 
House,  a  member  who  has  been  thanked  in  his  place  is  con- 
sidered as  having  a  right  always  to  occupy  that  place.  These 
gentlemen  were  not  disposed  to  admit  that  they  had  employed 
several  of  the  best  years  of  their  lives  in  persecuting  an 
innocent  man.  They  accordingly  kept  their  seats,  and  pulled 
their  hats  over  their  brows ;  but  the  exceptions  only  made  the 
prevailing  enthusiasm  more  remarkable.  The  Lords  received 
the  old  man  with  similar  tokens  of  respect.  The  University 


WARREN  HASTINGS  231 

of  Oxford  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws ; 
and  in  the  Sheldonian  Theatre  the  undergraduates  welcomed 
him  with  tumultuous  cheering. 

These  marks  of  public  esteem  were  soon  followed  by  marks 
of  royal  favour.  Hastings  was  sworn  of  the  Privy  Council,  and 
was  admitted  to  a  long  private  audience  of  the  Prince  Regent, 
who  treated  him  very  graciously.  When  the  Emperor  of 
Russia  and  the  King  of  Prussia  visited  England,  Hastings 
appeared  in  their  train  both  at  Oxford  and  in  the  Guildhall  of 
London,  and,  though  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  princes  and 
great  warriors,  was  everywhere  received  with  marks  of  respect 
and  admiration.  He  was  presented  by  the  Prince  Regent  both 
to  Alexander  and  to  Frederic  William  ;  and  his  Royal  Highness 
went  so  far  as  to  declare  in  public  that  honours  far  higher  than 
a  seat  in  the  Privy  Council  were  due,  and  would  soon  be  paid, 
to  the  man  who  had  saved  the  British  dominions  in  Asia. 
Hastings  now  confidently  expected  a  peerage ;  but,  from  some 
unexplained  cause,  he  was  again  disappointed. 

He  lived  about  four  years  longer,  in  the  enjoyment  of  good 
spirits,  of  faculties  not  impaired  to  any  painful  or  degrading 
extent,  and  of  health  such  as  is  rarely  enjoyed  by  those  who 
attain  such  an  age.  At  length,  on  the  twenty-second  of  August, 
1818,  in  the  eighty -sixth  year  of  his  age,  he  met  death  with 
the  same  tranquil  and  decorous  fortitude  which  he  had  opposed 
to  all  the  trials  of  his  various  and  eventful  life. 

With  all  his  faults  —  and  they  were  neither  few  nor  small  — 
only  one  cemetery  was  worthy  to  contain  his  remains.  In  that 
temple  of  silence  and  reconciliation  where  the  enmities  of 
twenty  generations  lie  buried,  in  the  Great  Abbey  which  has 
during  many  ages  afforded  a  quiet  resting-place  to  those  whose 
minds  and  bodies  have  been  shattered  by  the  contentions  of 
the  Great  Hall,  the  dust  of  the  illustrious  accused  should  have 
mingled  with  the  dust  of  the  illustrious  accusers.  This  was 
not  to  be.  Yet  the  place  of  interment  was  not  ill  chosen. 
Behind  the  chancel  of  the^parish  church  of  Daylesford,  in  earth 
which  already  held  the  bones  of  many  chiefs  of  the  house  of 


232  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Hastings,  was  laid  the  coffin  of  the  greatest  man  who  has  ever 
borne  that  ancient  and  widely  extended  name.  On  that  very 
spot  probably,  four-score  years  before,  the  little  Warren,  meanly 
clad  and  scantily  fed,  had  played  with  the  children  of  plough- 
men. Even  then  his  young  mind  had  revolved  plans  which  might 
be  called  romantic.  Yet,  however  romantic,  it  is  not  likely 
that  they  had  been  so  strange  as  the  truth.  Not  only  had  the 
poor  orphan  retrieved  the  fallen  fortunes  of  his  line.  Not  only 
had  he  repurchased  the  old  lands,  and  rebuilt  the  old  dwelling. 
He  had  preserved  and  extended  an  empire.  He  had  founded 
a  polity.  He  had  administered  government  and  war  with  more 
than  the  capacity  of  Richelieu.  He  had  patronized  learning 
with  the  judicious  liberality  of  Cosmo.  He  had  been  attacked 
by  the  most  formidable  combination  of  enemies  that  ever 
sought  the  destruction  of  a  single  victim ;  and  over  that  com- 
bination, after  a  struggle  of  ten  years,  he  had  triumphed.  He 
had  at  length  gone  down  to  his  grave  in  the  fulness  of  age, 
in  peace  after  so  many  troubles,  in  honour  after  so  much 
obloquy. 

Those  who  look  on  his  character  without  favour  or  malev- 
olence will  pronounce  that,  in  the  two  great  elements  of  all 
social  virtue,  in  respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  and  in  sympathy 
for  the  sufferings  of  others,  he  was  deficient.  His  principles 
were  somewhat  lax.  His  heart  was  somewhat  hard.  But 
though  we  cannot  with  truth  describe  him  either  as  a  righteous 
or  as  a  merciful  ruler,  we  cannot  regard  without  admiration  the 
amplitude  and  fertility  of  his  intellect ;  his  rare  talents  for  com- 
mand, for  administration,  and  for  controversy ;  his  dauntless 
courage  ;  his  honourable  poverty  ;  his  fervent  zeal  for  the  inter- 
ests of  the  State ;  his  noble  equanimity,  tried  by  both  extremes 
of  fortune,  and  never  disturbed  by  either. 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT 

Frederic,  surnamed  the  Great,  son  of  Frederic  William,  was 
born  in  January,  1712.  It  may  safely  be  pronounced  that  he 
had  received  from  nature  a  strong  and  sharp  understanding, 
and  a  rare  firmness  of  temper  and  intensity  of  will.  As  to  the 
other  parts  of  his  character,  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  they 
are  to  be  ascribed  to  nature  or  to  the  strange  training  which  he 
underwent.  The  history  of  his  boyhood  is  painfully  interest- 
ing. Oliver  Twist  in  the  parish  workhouse,  Smike  at  Dotheboys 
Hall,  were  petted  children  when  compared  with  this  wretched 
heir  apparent  of  a  crown.  The  nature  of  Frederic  William 
was  hard  and  bad,  and  the  habit  of  exercising  arbitrary  power 
had  made  him  frightfully  savage.  His  rage  constantly  vented 
itself  to  right  and  left  in  curses  and  blows.  When  his  Majesty 
took  a  walk,  every  human  being  fled  before  him,  as  if  a  tiger 
had  broken  loose  from  a  menagerie.  If  he  met  a  lady  in  the 
street,  he  gave  her  a  kick,  and  told  her  to  go  home  and  mind 
her  brats.  If  he  saw  a  clergyman  staring  at  the  soldiers,  he 
admonished  the  reverend  gentleman  to  betake  himself  to  study 
and  prayer,  and  enforced  this  pious  advice  by  a  sound  caning, 
administered  on  the  spot.  But  it  was  in  his  own  house  that  he 
was  most  unreasonable  and  ferocious.  His  palace  was  hell, 
and  he  the  most  execrable  of  fiends,  a  cross  between  Moloch 
and  Puck.  His  son  Frederic  and  his  daughter  Wilhelmina, 
afterwards  Margravine  of  Bareuth,  were  in  an  especial  manner 
objects  of  his  aversion.  His  own  mind  was  uncultivated.  He 
despised  literature.  He  hated  infidels,  papists,  and  metaphysi- 
cians, and  did  not  very  well  understand  in  what  they  differed 
from  each  other.  The  business  of  life,  according  to  him,  was 
to  drill  and  to  be  drilled.  The  recreations  suited  to  a  prince 
were  to  sit  in  a  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke,  to  sip  Swedish  beer 

-33 


234  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

between  the  puffs  of  the  pipe,  to  play  backgammon  for  three 
halfpence  a  rubber,  to  kill  wild  hogs,  and  to  shoot  partridges 
by  the  thousand.  The  Prince  Royal  showed  little  inclination 
either  for  the  serious  employments  or  for  the  amusements  of 
his  father.  He  shirked  the  duties  of  the  parade ;  he  detested 
the  fume  of  tobacco  ;  he  had  no  taste  either  for  backgammon 
or  for  field  sports.  He  had  an  exquisite  ear,  and  performed 
skilfully  on  the  flute.  His  earliest  instructors  had  been  French 
refugees,  and  they  had  awakened  in  him  a  strong  passion  for 
French  literature  and  French  society.  Frederic  William  re- 
garded these  tastes  as  effeminate  and  contemptible,  and,  by 
abuse  and  persecution,  made  them  still  stronger.  Things  became 
worse  when  the  Prince  Royal  attained  that  time  of  life  at  which 
the  great  revolution  in  the  human  mind  and  body  takes  place. 
He  was  guilty  of  some  youthful  indiscretions,  which  no  good 
and  wise  parent  would  regard  with  severity.  At  a  later  period 
he  was  accused,  truly  or  falsely,  of  vices  from  which  History 
averts  her  eyes,  and  which  even  Satire  blushes  to  name  —  vices 
such  that,  to  borrow  the  energetic  language  of  Lord  Keeper 
Coventry,  "  the  depraved  nature  of  man,  which  of  itself  carrieth 
man  to  all  other  sin,  abhorreth  them."  But  the  offences  of  his 
youth  were  not  characterized  by  any  peculiar  turpitude.  They 
excited,  however,  transports  of  rage  in  the  King,  who  hated  all 
faults  except  those  to  which  he  was  himself  inclined,  and  who 
conceived  that  he  made  ample  atonement  to  Heaven  for  his 
brutality,  by  holding  the  softer  passions  in  detestation.  The 
Prince  Royal,  too,  was  not  one  of  those  who  are  content  to 
take  their  religion  on  trust.  He  asked  puzzling  questions,  and 
brought  forward  arguments  which  seemed  to  savour  of  some- 
thing different  from  pure  Lutheranism.  The  King  suspected 
that  his  son  was  inclined  to  be  a  heretic  of  some  sort  or  other, 
whether  Calvinist  or  Atheist  his  Majesty  did  not  very  well 
know.  The  ordinary  malignity  of  Frederic  William  was  bad 
enough.  He  now  thought  malignity  a  part  of  his  duty  as  a 
Christian  man,  and  all  the  conscience  that  he  had  stimulated 
his  hatred.  The  flute  was  broken  ;  the  French  books  were 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  235 

sent  out  of  the  palace ;  the  Prince  was  kicked  and  cudgelled, 
and  pulled  by  the  hair.  At  dinner  the  plates  were  hurled  at 
his  head  ;  sometimes  he  was  restricted  to  bread  and  water ; 
sometimes  he  was  forced  to  swallow  food  so  nauseous  that  he 
could  not  keep  it  on  his  stomach.  Once  his  father  knocked 
him  down,  dragged  him  along  the  floor  to  a  window,  and  was 
with  difficulty  prevented  from  strangling  him  with  the  cord  of 
the  curtain.  The  Queen,  for  the  crime  of  not  wishing  to  see 
her  son  murdered,  was  subjected  to  the  grossest  indignities. 
The  Princess  Wilhelmina,  who  took  her  brother's  part,  was 
treated  almost  as  ill  as  Mrs.  Brownrigg's  apprentices.  Driven 
to  despair,  the  unhappy  youth  tried  to  run  away.  Then  the  fury 
of  the  old  tyrant  rose  to  madness.  The  Prince  was  an  officer 
in  the  army :  his  flight  was  therefore  desertion  ;  and  in  the 
moral  code  of  Frederic  William,  desertion  was  the  highest  of 
all  crimes.  "  Desertion,"  says  this  royal  theologian,  in  one  of 
his  half-crazy  letters,  "  is  from  hell.  It  is  a  work  of  the 
children  of  the  Devil.  No  child  of  God  could  possibly  be 
guilty  of  it."  An  accomplice  of  the  Prince,  in  spite  of  the 
recommendation  of  a  court-martial,  was  mercilessly  put  to  death. 
It  seemed  probable  that  the  Prince  himself  would  suffer  the 
same  fate.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  the  intercession  of  the 
States  of  Holland,  of  the  Kings  of  Sweden  and  Poland,  and 
of  the  Emperor  of  Germany  saved  the  House  of  Brandenburg 
from  the  stain  of  an  unnatural  murder.  After  months  of  cruel 
suspense,  Frederic  learned  that  his  life  would  be  spared.  He 
remained,  however,  long  a  prisoner ;  but  he  was  not  on  'that 
account  to  be  pitied.  He  found  in  his  gaolers  a  tenderness 
which  he  had  never  found  in  his  father.  His  table  was  not 
sumptuous,  but  he  had  wholesome  food  in  sufficient  quantity 
to  appease  hunger ;  he  could  read  the  Hcnriade  without  being 
kicked,  and  could  play  on  his  flute  without  having  it  broken 
over  his  head. 

When  his  confinement  terminated  he  was  a  man.  He  had 
nearly  completed  his  twenty-first  year,  and  could  scarcely  be 
kept  much  longer  under  the  restraints  which  had  made  his 


236  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

boyhood  miserable.  Suffering  had  matured  his  understanding, 
while  it  had  hardened  his  heart  and  soured  his  temper.  He 
had  learnt  self-command  and  dissimulation ;  he  affected  to 
conform  to  some  of  his  father's  views,  and  submissively 
accepted  a  wife,  who  was  a  wife  only  in  name,  from  his  father's 
hand.  He  also  served  with  credit,  though  without  any  oppor- 
tunity of  acquiring  brilliant  distinction,  under  the  command  of 
Prince  Eugene,  during  a  campaign  marked  by  no  extraordinary 
events.  He  was  now  permitted  to  keep  a  separate  establish- 
ment, and  was  therefore  able  to  indulge  with  caution  his  own 
tastes.  Partly  in  order  to  conciliate  the  King,  and  partly,  no 
doubt,  from  inclination,  he  gave  up  a  portion  of  his  time  to 
military  and  political  business,  and  thus  gradually  acquired 
such  an  aptitude  for  affairs  as  his  most  intimate  associates 
were  not  aware  that  he  possessed. 

His  favourite  abode  was  at  Rheinsberg,  near  the  frontier 
which  separates  the  Prussian  dominions  from  the  Duchy  of 
Mecklenburg.  Rheinsberg  is  a  fertile  and  smiling  spot,  in  the 
midst  of  the  sandy  waste  of  the  Marquisate.  The  mansion, 
surrounded  by  woods  of  oak  and  beech,  looks  out  upon  a 
spacious  lake.  There  Frederic  amused  himself  by  laying  out 
gardens  in  regular  alleys  and  intricate  mazes,  by  building 
obelisks,  temples,  and  conservatories,  and  by  collecting  rare 
fruits  and  flowers.  His  retirement  was  enlivened  by  a  few 
companions,  among  whom  he  seems  to  have  preferred  those 
who,  by  birth  or  extraction,  were  French.  With  these  intimates 
he  dined  and  supped  well,  drank  freely,  and  amused  himself 
sometimes  with  concerts,  and  sometimes  with  holding  chapters 
of  a  fraternity  which  he  called  the  Order  of  Bayard ;  but 
literature  was  his  chief  resource. 

His  education  had  been  entirely  French.  The  long  ascend- 
ency which  Louis  the  Fourteenth  had  enjoyed,  and  the 
eminent  merit  of  the  tragic  and  comic  dramatists,  of  the 
satirists,  and  of  the  preachers  who  had  flourished  under  that 
magnificent  prince,  had  made  the  French  language  predominant 
in  Europe.  Even  in  countries  which  had  a  national  literature, 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  237 

and  which  could  boast  of  names  greater  than  those  of  Racine, 
of  Moliere,.  and  of  Massillon  —  in  the  country  of  Dante,  in  the 
country  of  Cervantes,  in  the  country  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  — 
the  intellectual  fashions  of  Paris  had  been  to  a  great  extent 
adopted.  Germany  had  not  yet  produced  a  single  masterpiece 
of  poetry  or  eloquence.  In  Germany,  therefore,  the  French 
taste  reigned  without  rival  and  without  limit.  Every  youth  of 
rank  was  taught  to  speak  and  write  French.  That  he  should 
speak  and  write  his  own  tongue  with  politeness,  or  even  with 
accuracy  and  facility,  was  regarded  as  comparatively  an  un- 
important object.  Even  Frederic  William,  with  all  his  rugged 
Saxon  prejudices,  thought  it  necessary  that  his  children  should 
know  French,  and  quite  unnecessary  that  they  should  be  well 
versed  in  German.  The  Latin  was  positively  interdicted.  "  My 
son,"  his  Majesty  wrote,  "shall  not  learn  Latin  ;  and,  more  than 
that,  I  will  not  suffer  anybody  even  to  mention  such  a  thing  to 
me."  One  of  the  preceptors  ventured  to  read  the  Golden 
Bull  in  the  original  with  the  Prince  Royal.  Frederic  William 
entered  the  room,  and  broke  out  in  his  usual  kingly  style : 

"  Rascal,  what  are  you  at  there  ?  " 

"  Please  your  Majesty,"  answered  the  preceptor,  "  I  was 
explaining  the  Golden  Bull  to  his  Royal  Highness." 

"  I  '11  Golden  Bull  you,  you  rascal !"  roared  the  Majesty  of 
Prussia.  Up  went  the  King's  cane ;  away  ran  the  terrified 
instructor ;  and  Frederic's  classical  studies  ended  for  ever. 
He  now  and  then  affected  to  quote  Latin  sentences,  and 
produced  such  exquisitely  Ciceronian  phrases  as  these  :  "  Stante 
pede  morire  "  ;  "De  gustibus  non  est  disputandus  "  ;  "Tot 
verbas  tot  spondera."  Of  Italian  he  had  not  enough  to  read 
a  page  of  Metastasio  with  ease ;  and  of  the  Spanish  and 
English,  he  did  not,  as  far  as  we  are  aware,  understand 
a  single  word.  .  .  . 

Early  in  the  year  1740,  Frederic  William  met  death  with  a 
firmness  and  dignity  worthy  of  a  better  and  wiser  man  ;  and 
Frederic,  who  had  just  completed  his  twenty-eighth  year, 
became  King  of  Prussia.  His  character  was  little  understood. 


238  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

That  he  had  good  abilities,  indeed,  no  person  who  had  talked 
with  him  or  corresponded  with  him  could  doubt.  But  the  easy 
Epicurean  life  which  he  had  led,  his  love  of  good  cookery  and 
good  wine,  of  music,  of  conversation,  of  light  literature,  led 
many  to  regard  him  as  a  sensual  and  intellectual  voluptuary. 
His  habit  of  canting  about  moderation,  peace,  liberty,  and  the 
happiness  which  a  good  mind  derives  from  the  happiness  of 
others  had  imposed  on  some  who  should  have  known  better. 
Those  who  thought  best  of  him,  expected  a  Telemachus  after 
Fenelon's  pattern.  Others  predicted  the  approach  of  a  Medicean 
age  —  an  age  propitious  to  learning  and  art,  and  not  unpropi- 
tious  to  pleasure.  Nobody  had  the  least  suspicion  that  a  tyrant 
of  extraordinary  military  and  political  talents,  of  industry  more 
extraordinary  still,  without  fear,  without  faith,  and  without 
mercy,  had  ascended  the  throne. 

The  disappointment  of  Falstaff  at  his  old  boon-companion's 
coronation  was  not  more  bitter  than  that  which  awaited  some 
of  the  inmates  of  Rheinsberg.  They  had  long  looked  forward 
to  the  accession  of  their  patron  as  to  the  event  from  which  their 
own  prosperity  and  greatness  were  to  date.  They  had  at  last 
reached  the  promised  land  —  the  land  which  they  had  figured  to 
themselves  as  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  —  and  they  found  it 
a  desert.  "No  more  of  these  fooleries,"  was  the  short,  sharp 
admonition  given  by  Frederic  to  one  of  them.  It  soon  became 
plain  that,  in  the  most  important  points,  the  new  sovereign  bore 
a  strong  family  likeness  to  his  predecessor.  There  was,  indeed, 
a  wide  difference  between  the  father  and  the  son  as  respected 
extent  and  vigour  of  intellect,  speculative  opinions,  amuse- 
ments, studies,  outward  demeanour.  But  the  groundwork  of 
the  character  was  the  same  in  both.  To  both  were  common 
the  love  of  order,  the  love  of  business,  the  military  taste,  the 
parsimony,  the  imperious  spirit,  the  temper  irritable  even  to 
ferocity,  the  pleasure  in  the  pain  and  humiliation  of  others.  But 
these  propensities  had  in  Frederic  William  partaken  of  the 
general  unsoundness  of  his  mind,  and  wore  a  very  different 
aspect  when  found  in  company  with  the  strong  and  cultivated 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  239 

understanding  of  his  successor.  Thus,  for  example,  Frederic  was 
as  anxious  as  any  prince  could  be  about  the  efficiency  of  his  army. 
But  this  anxiety  never  degenerated  into  a  monomania  like  that 
which  led  his  father  to  pay  fancy  prices  for  giants.  Frederic 
was  as  thrifty  about  money  as  any  prince  or  any  private  man 
ought  to  be.  But  he  did  not  conceive,  like  his  father,  that  it 
was  worth  while  to  eat  unwholesome  cabbages  for  the  purpose 
of  saving  four  or  five  rix-dollars  in  the  year.  Frederic  was,  we 
fear,  as  malevolent  as  his  father ;  but  Frederic's  wit  enabled 
him  often  to  show  his  malevolence  in  ways  more  decent  than 
those  to  which  his  father  resorted,  and  to  inflict  misery  and 
degradation  by  a  taunt  instead  of  a  blow.  Frederic,  it  is  true, 
by  no  means  relinquished  his  hereditary  privilege  of  kicking 
and  cudgelling.  His  practice,  however,  as  to  that  matter  dif- 
fered in  some  important  respects  from  his  father's.  To  Frederic 
William,  the  mere  circumstance  that  any  persons  whatever, 
men,  women,  or  children,  Prussians  or  foreigners,  were  within 
reach  of  his  toes  and  of  his  cane  appeared  to  be  a  sufficient 
reason  for  proceeding  to  belabour  them.  Frederic  required 
provocation  as  well  as  vicinity ;  nor  was  he  ever  known  to  in- 
flict this  paternal  species  of  correction  on  any  but  his  born 
subjects ;  though  on  one  occasion  M.  Thiebault  had  reason, 
during  a  few  seconds,  to  anticipate  the  high  honour  of  being 
an  exception  to  this  general  rule.  .  .  . 

He  had,  from  the  commencement  of  his  reign,  applied  him- 
self to  public  business  after  a  fashion  unknown  among  kings. 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  indeed,  had  been  his  own  prime  minis- 
ter, and  had  exercised  a  general  superintendence  over  all  the 
departments  of  the  Government ;  but  this  was  not  sufficient 
for  Frederic.  He  was  not  content  with  being  his  own  prime 
minister ;  he  would  be  his  own  sole  minister.  Under  him  there 
was  no  room,  not  merely  for  a  Richelieu  or  a  Mazarin,  but  for 
a  Colbert,  a  Louvois,  or  a  Torcy.  A  love  of  labour  for  its  own 
sake,  a  restless  and  insatiable  longing  to  dictate,  to  intermed- 
dle, to  make  his  power  felt,  a  profound  scorn  and  distrust  of 
his  fellow-creatures,  made  him  unwilling  to  ask  counsel,  to 


240  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

confide  important  secrets,  to  delegate  ample  powers.  The  high- 
est functionaries  under  his  government  were  mere  clerks,  and 
were  not  so  much  trusted  by  him  as  valuable  clerks  are  often 
trusted  by  the  heads  of  departments.  He  was  his  own  treas- 
urer, his  own  commander-in-chief,  his  own  intendant  of  public 
works,  his  own  minister  for  trade  and  justice,  for  home  affairs 
and  foreign  affairs,  his  own  master  of  the  horse,  steward,  and 
chamberlain.  Matters  of  which  no  chief  of  an  office  in  any 
other  government  would  ever  hear  were,  in  this  singular  mon- 
archy, decided  by  the  King  in  person.  If  a  traveller  wished 
for  a  good  place  to  see  a  review,  he  had  to  write  to  Frederic, 
and  received  next  day  from  a  royal  messenger  Frederic's 
answer  signed  by  Frederic's  own  hand.  This  was  an  extrava- 
gant, a  morbid  activity.  The  public  business  would  assuredly 
have  been  better  done  if  each  department  had  been  put  under 
a  man  of  talents  and  integrity,  and  if  the  King  had  con- 
tented himself  with  a  general  control.  In  this  manner  the 
advantages  which  belong  to  unity  of  design,  and  the  advan- 
tages which  belong  to  the  division  of  labour,  would  have  been 
to  a  great  extent  combined.  But  such  a  system  would  not  have 
suited  the  peculiar  temper  of  Frederic.  He  could  tolerate  no 
will,  no  reason,  in  the  State  save  his  own.  He  wished  for 
no  abler  assistance  than  that  of  penmen  who  had  just  under- 
standing enough  to  translate  and  transcribe,  to  make  out  his 
scrawls,  and  to  put  his  concise  Yes  and  No  into  an  official 
form.  Of  the  higher  intellectual  faculties,  there  is  as  much  in 
a  copying-machine  or  a  lithographic  press  as  he  required  from 
a  secretary  of  the  cabinet. 

His  own  exertions  were  such  as  were  hardly  to  be  expected 
from  a  human  body  or  a  human  mind.  At  Potsdam,  his  ordi- 
nary residence,  he  rose  at  three  in  summer  and  four  in  win- 
ter. A  page  soon  appeared  with  a  large  basket  full  of  all  the 
letters  which  had  arrived  for  the  King  by  the  last  courier  — 
despatches  from  ambassadors,  reports  from  officers  of  revenue, 
plans  of  buildings,  proposals  for  draining  marshes,  complaints 
from  persons  who  thought  themselves  aggrieved,  applications 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  241 

from  persons  who  wanted  titles,  military  commissions,  and  civil 
situations.  He  examined  the  seals  with  a  keen  eye ;  for  he 
was  never  for  a  moment  free  from  the  suspicion  that  some 
fraud  might  be  practised  on  him.  Then  he  read  the  letters, 
divided  them  into  several  packets,  and  signified  his  pleasure, 
generally  by  a  mark,  often  by  two  or  three  words,  now  and 
then  by  some  cutting-  epigram.  By  eight  he  had  generally  fin- 
ished this  part  of  his  task.  The  adjutant-general  was  then  in 
attendance,  and  received  instructions  for  the  day  as  to  all  the 
military  arrangements  of  the  kingdom.  Then  the  King  went  to 
review  his  guards,  not  as  kings  ordinarily  review  their  guards, 
but  with  the  minute  attention  and  severity  of  an  old  drill- 
sergeant.  In  the  meantime  the  four  cabinet  secretaries  had 
been  employed  in  answering  the  letters  on  which  the  King 
had  that  morning  signified  his  will.  These  unhappy  men  were 
forced  to  work  all  the  year  round  like  negro  slaves  in  the  time 
of  the  sugar-crop.  They  never  had  a  holiday.  They  never 
knew  what  it  was  to  dine.  It  was  necessary  that  before  they 
stirred  they  should  finish  the  whole  of  their  work.  The  King, 
always  on  his  guard  against  treachery,  took  from  the  heap  a 
handful  of  letters  at  random  and  looked  into  them  to  see 
whether  his  instructions  had  been  exactly  followed.  This  was 
no  bad  security  against  foul  play  on  the  part  of  the  secretaries ; 
for  if  one  of  them  were  detected  in  a  trick,  he  might  think 
himself  fortunate  if  he  escaped  with  five  years  of  imprison- 
ment in  a  dungeon.  Frederic  then  signed  the  replies,  and  all 
were  sent  off  the  same  evening. 

The  general  principles  on  which  this  strange  government 
was  conducted  deserve  attention.  The  policy  of  Frederic  was 
essentially  the  same  as  his  father's ;  but  Frederic,  while  he 
carried  that  policy  to  lengths  to  which  his  father  never  thought 
of  carrying  it,  cleared  it,  at  the  same  time,  from  the  absurdities 
with  which  his  father  had  encumbered  it.  The  King's  first 
object  was  to  have  a  great,  efficient,  and  well-trained  army. 
He  had  a  kingdom  which  in  extent  and  population  was  hardly 
in  the  second  rank  of  European  powers ;  and  yet  he  aspired 


242  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  a  place  not  inferior  to  that  of  the  sovereigns  of  England, 
France,  and  Austria.  For  that  end  it  was  necessary  that  Prus- 
sia should  be  all  sting.  Louis  the  Fifteenth,  with  five  times 
as  many  subjects  as  Frederic,  and  more  than  five  times  as 
large  a  revenue,  had  not  a  more  formidable  army.  The  propor- 
tion which  the  soldiers  in  Prussia  bore  to  the  people  seems 
hardly  credible.  Of  the  males  in  the  vigour  of  life,  a  seventh 
part  were  probably  under  arms ;  and  this  great  force  had,  by 
drilling,  by  reviewing,  and  by  the  unsparing  use  of  cane  and 
scourge,  been  taught  to  perform  all  evolutions  with'  a  rapidity 
and  a  precision  which  would  have  astonished  Villars  or  Eugene. 
The  elevated  feelings  which  are  necessary  to  the  best  kind  of 
army  were  then  wanting  to  the  Prussian  service.  In  those  ranks 
were  not  found  the  religious  and  political  enthusiasm  which 
inspired  the  pikemen  of  Cromwell ;  the  patriotic  ardour,  the 
thirst  of  glory,  the  devotion  to  a  great  leader,  which  inflamed 
the  Old  Guard  of  Napoleon.  But  in  all  the  mechanical  parts 
of  the  military  calling  the  Prussians  were  as  superior  to  the 
English  and  French  troops  of  that  day  as  the  English  and 
French  troops  to  a  rustic  militia. 

Though  the  pay  of  the  Prussian  soldier  was  small,  though 
every  rix-dollar  of  extraordinary  charge  was  scrutinized  by 
Frederic  with  a  vigilance  and  suspicion  such  as  Mr.  Joseph 
Hume  never  brought  to  the  examination  of  an  army  estimate, 
the  expense  of  such  an  establishment  was,  for  the  means  of 
the  country,  enormous.  In  order  that  it  might  not  be  utterly 
ruinous,  it  was  necessary  that  every  other  expense  should  be 
cut  down  to  the  lowest  possible  point.  Accordingly  Frederic, 
though  his  dominions  bordered  on  the  sea,  had  no  navy.  He 
neither  had  nor  wished  to  have  colonies.  His  judges,  his  fiscal 
officers,  were  meanly  paid.  His  ministers  at  foreign  courts 
walked  on  foot,  or  drove  shabby  old  carriages  till  the  axle- 
trees  gave  way.  Even  to  his  highest  diplomatic  agents,  who 
resided  at  London  and  Paris,  he  allowed  less  than  a  thousand 
pounds  sterling  a  year.  The  royal  household  was  managed 
with  a  frugality  unusual  in  the  establishments  of  opulent 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  243 

subjects,  unexampled  in  any  other  palace.  The  King  loved 
good  eating  and  drinking,  and  during  great  part  of  his  life 
took  pleasure  in  seeing  his  table  surrounded  by  guests ;  yet 
the  whole  charge  of  his  kitchen  was  brought  within  the  sum 
of  two  thousand  pounds  sterling  a  year.  He  examined  every 
extraordinary  item  with  a  care  which  might  be  thought  to  suit 
the  mistress  of  a  boarding-house  better  than  a  great  prince. 
When  more  than  four  rix-dollars  were  asked  of  him  for  a  hun- 
dred oysters,  he  stormed  as  if  he  had  heard  that  one  of  his 
generals  had  sold  a  fortress  to  the  Empress  Queen.  Not  a 
bottle  of  champagne  was  uncorked  without  his  express  order. 
The  game  of  the  royal  parks  and  forests,  a  serious  head  of 
expenditure  in  most  kingdoms,  was  to  him  a  source  of  profit. 
The  whole  was  farmed  out ;  and  though  the  farmers  were 
almost  ruined  by  their  contract,  the  King  would  grant  them 
no  remission.  His  wardrobe  consisted  of  one  fine  gala  dress, 
which  lasted  him  all  his  life,  of  two  or  three  old  coats  fit  for 
Monmouth  Street,  of  yellow  waistcoats  soiled  with  snuff,  and 
of  huge  boots  embrowned  by  time.  One  taste  alone  sometimes 
allured  him  beyond  the  limits  of  parsimony — nay,  even  beyond 
the  limits  of  prudence  —  the  taste  for  building.  In  all  other 
things  his  economy  was  such  as  we  might  call  by  a  harsher 
name,  if  we  did  not  reflect  that  his  funds  were  drawn  from  a 
heavily  taxed  people,  and  that  it  was  impossible  for  him,  with- 
out excessive  tyranny,  to  keep  up  at  once  a  formidable  army 
and  a  splendid  court. 

Considered  as  an  administrator,  Frederic  had  undoubtedly 
many  titles  to  praise.  Order  was  strictly  maintained  through- 
out his  dominions.  Property  was  secure.  A  great  liberty  of 
speaking  and  of  writing  was  allowed.  Confident  in  the  irre- 
sistible strength  derived  from  a  great  army,  the  King  looked 
down  on  malcontents  and  libellers  with  a  wise  disdain,  and 
gave  little  encouragement  to  spies  and  informers.  When  he 
was  told  of  the  disaffection  of  one  of  his  subjects,  he  merely 
asked,  "How  many  thousand  men  can  he  bring  into  the 
field  ? "  He  once  saw  a  crowd  staring  at  something  on  a  wall. 


244  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  rode  up  and  found  that  the  object  of  curiosity  was  a 
scurrilous  placard  against  himself.  The  placard  had  been 
posted  up  so  high  that  it  was  not  easy  to  read  it.  Frederic 
ordered  his  attendants  to  take  it  down  and  put  it  lower.  "  My 
people  and  I,"  he  said,  "  have  come  to  an  agreement  which 
satisfies  us  both.  They  are  to  say  what  they  please,  and  I  am 
to  do  what  I  please."  No  person  would  have  dared  to  publish 
in  London  satires  on  George  the  Second  approaching  to  the 
atrocity  of  those  satires  on  Frederic  which  the  booksellers  at 
Berlin  sold  with  impunity.  One  bookseller  sent  to  the  palace 
a  copy  of  the  most  stinging  lampoon  that  perhaps  was  ever 
written  in  the  world  —  the  Memoirs  of  Voltaire,  published  by 
Beaumarchais  —  and  asked  for  his  Majesty's  orders.  M  Do  not 
advertise  it  in  an  offensive  manner,"  said  the  King,  "but  sell 
it  by  all  means.  I  hope  it  will  pay  you  well."  Even  among 
statesmen  accustomed  to  the  license  of  a  free  press,  such 
steadfastness  of  mind  as  this  is  not  very  common. 

It  is  due  also  to  the  memory  of  Frederic  to  say  that  he 
earnestly  laboured  to  secure  to  his  people  the  great  blessing 
of  cheap  and  speedy  justice.  He  was  one  of  the  first  rulers 
who  abolished  the  cruel  and  absurd  practice  of  torture.  No 
sentence  of  death  pronounced  by  the  ordinary  tribunals  was 
executed  without  his  sanction ;  and  his  sanction,  except  in 
cases  of  murder,  was  rarely  given.  Towards  his  troops  he 
acted  in  a  very  different  manner.  Military  offences  were 
punished  with  such  barbarous  scourging  that  to  be  shot  was 
considered  by  the  Prussian  soldier  as  a  secondary  punishment. 
Indeed,  the  principle  which  pervaded  Frederic's  whole  policy 
was  this,  that  the  more  severely  the  army  is  governed,  the 
safer  it  is  to  treat  the  rest  of  the  community  with  lenity. 

Religious  persecution  was  unknown  under  his  government, 
unless  some  foolish  and  unjust  restrictions  which  lay  upon  the 
Jews  may  be  regarded  as  forming  an  exception.  His  policy 
with  respect  to  the  Catholics  o'f 'Silesia  presented  an  honour- 
able contrast  to  the  policy  which,  under  very  similar  circum- 
stances, England  long  followdd  with  respect  to  the  Catholics 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  245 

of  Ireland.  Every  form  of  religion  and  irreligion  found  an 
asylum  in  the  States.  The  scoffer  whom  the  parliaments  of 
France  had  sentenced  to  a  cruel  death  was  consoled  by  a 
commission  in  the  Prussian  service.  The  Jesuit  who  could 
show  his  face  nowhere  else,  who  in  Britain  was  still  subject 
to  penal  laws,  who  was  proscribed  by  France,  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  Naples,  who  had  been  given  up  even  by  the  Vatican, 
found  safety  and  the  means  of  subsistence  in  the  Prussian 
dominions. 

Most  of  the  vices  of  Frederic's  administration  resolve  them- 
selves into  one  vice  —  the  spirit  of  meddling.  The  indefatigable 
activity  of  his  intellect,  his  dictatorial  temper,  his  military 
habits  —  all  inclined  him  to  this  great  fault.  He  drilled  his 
people  as  he  drilled  his  grenadiers.  Capital  and  industry  were 
diverted  from  their  natural  direction  by  a  crowd  of  preposterous 
regulations.  There  was  a  monopoly  of  coffee,  a  monopoly  of 
tobacco,  a  monopoly  of  refined  sugar.  The  public  money,  of 
which  the  King  was  generally  so  sparing,  was  lavishly  spent 
in  ploughing  bogs,  in  planting  mulberry  trees  amidst  the  sand, 
in  bringing  sheep  from  Spain  to  improve  the  Saxon  wool,  in 
bestowing  prizes  for  fine  yarn,  in  building  manufactories  of 
porcelain,  manufactories  of  carpets,  manufactories  of  hardware, 
manufactories  of  lace.  Neither  the  experience  of  other  rulers 
nor  his  own  could  ever  teach  him  that  something  more  than 
an  edict  and  a  grant  of  public  money  was  required  to  create  a 
Lyons,  a  Brussels,  or  a  Birmingham. 

For  his  commercial  policy,  however,  there  was  some  excuse. 
He  had  on  his  side  illustrious  examples  and  popular  prejudice. 
Grievously  as  he  erred,  he  erred  in  company  with  his  age. 
In  other  departments  his  meddling  was  altogether  without 
apology.  He  interfered  with  the  course  of  justice  as  well  as 
with  the  course  of  trade,  and  set  up  his  own  crude  notions  of 
equity  against  the  law  as  expounded  by  the  unanimous  voice 
of  the  gravest  magistrates.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  men 
whose  lives  were  passed  in  adjudicating  on  questions  of  civil 
right  were  more  likely  to  form  correct  opinions  on  such 


246  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

questions  than  a  prince  whose  attention  was  divided  among  a 
thousand  objects,  and  who  had  never  read  a  law-book  through. 
The  resistance  opposed  to  him  by  the  tribunals  inflamed  him 
to  fury.  He  reviled  his  Chancellor.  He  kicked  the  shins  of 
his  judges.  He  did  not,  it  is  true,  intend  to  act  unjustly. 
He  firmly  believed  that  he  was  doing  right  and  defending  the 
cause  of  the  poor  against  the  wealthy.  Yet  this  well-meant 
meddling  probably  did  far  more  harm  than  all  the  explosions 
of  his  evil  passions  during  the  whole  of  his  long  reign.  We 
could  make  shift  to  live  under  a  debauchee  or  a  tyrant,  but 
to  be  ruled  by  a  busybody  is  more  than  human  nature  can  bear. 

The  same  passion  for  directing  and  regulating  appeared  in 
every  part  of  the  King's  policy.  Every  lad  of  a  certain  station 
in  life  was  forced  to  go  to  certain  schools  within  the  Prussian 
dominions.  If  a  young  Prussian  repaired,  though  but  for  a 
few  weeks,  to  Leyden  or  Gottingen  for  the  purpose  of  study, 
the  offence  was  punished  with  civil  disabilities,  and  sometimes 
with  the  confiscation  of  property.  Nobody  was  to  travel  with- 
out the  royal  permission.  If  the  permission  were  granted,  the 
pocket-money  of  the  tourist  was  fixed  by  royal  ordinance.  A 
merchant  might  take  with  him  two  hundred  and  fifty  rix- 
dollars  in  gold,  a  noble  was  allowed  to  take  four  hundred ; 
for  it  may  be  observed,  in  passing,  that  Frederic  studiously 
kept  up  the  old  distinction  between  the  nobles  and  the  com- 
munity. In  speculation  he  was  a  French  philosopher,  but  in 
action  a  German  prince.  He  talked  and  wrote  about  the 
privileges  of  blood  in  the  style  of  Sieyes ;  but  in  practice  no 
chapter  in  the  empire  looked  with  a  keener  eye  to  genealogies 
and  quarterings. 

Such  was  Frederic  the  Ruler.  But  there  was  another 
Frederic  —  the  Frederic  of  Rheinsberg,  the  fiddler  and  flute- 
player,  the  poetaster  and  metaphysician.  Amidst  the  cares  of 
State  the  King  had  retained  his  passion  for  music,  for  reading, 
for  writing,  for  literary  society.  To  these  amusements  he 
devoted  all  the  time  that  he  could  snatch  from  the  business  of 
war  and  government ;  and  perhaps  more  light  is  thrown  on 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  247 

his  character  by  what  passed  during  his  hours  of  relaxation 
than  by  his  battles  or  his  laws. 

It  was  the  just  boast  of  Schiller  that,  in  his  country,  no 
Augustus,  no  Lorenzo,  had  watched  over  the  infancy  of  poetry. 
The  rich  and  energetic  language  of  Luther,  driven  by  the 
Latin  from  the  schools  of  pedants,  and  by  the  French  from 
the  palaces  of  kings,  had  taken  refuge  among  the  people.  Of 
the  powers  of  that  language  Frederic  had  no  notion.  He  gen- 
erally spoke  of  it,  and  of  those  who  used  it,  with  the  contempt 
of  ignorance.  His  library  consisted  of  French  books ;  at  his 
table  nothing  was  heard  but  French  conversation.  The  asso- 
ciates of  his  hours  of  relaxation  were,  for  the  most  part, 
foreigners.  Britain  furnished  to  the  royal  circle  two  distin- 
guished men,  born  in  the  highest  rank,  and  driven  by  civil 
dissensions  from  the  land  to  which,  under  happier  circum- 
stances, their  talents  and  virtues  might  have  been  a  source  of 
strength  and  glory.  George  Keith,  Earl  Mareschal  of  Scotland, 
had  taken  arms  for  the  House  of  Stuart  in  1715,  and  his 
younger  brother  James,  then  only  seventeen  years  old,  had 
fought  gallantly  by  his  side.  When  all  was  lost,  they  retired 
together  to  the  Continent,  roved  from  country  to  country, 
served  under  various  standards,  and  so  bore  themselves  as  to 
win  the  respect  and  goodwill  of  many  who  had  no  love  for  the 
Jacobite  cause.  Their  long  wanderings  terminated  at  Potsdam  ; 
nor  had  Frederic  any  associates  who  deserved  or  obtained  so 
large  a  share  of  his  esteem.  They  were  not  only  accomplished 
men,  but  nobles  and  warriors,  capable  of  serving  him  in  war 
and  diplomacy,  as  well  as  of  amusing  him  at  supper.  Alone 
of  all  his  companions  they  appear  never  to  have  had  reason  to 
complain  of  his  demeanour  towards  them.  Some  of  those  who 
knew  the  palace  best  pronounced  that  the  Lord  Mareschal  was 
the  only  human  being  whom  Frederic  ever  really  loved. 

Italy  sent  to  the  parties  at  Potsdam  the  ingenious  and 
amiable  Algarotti,  and  Bastiani,  the  most  crafty,  cautious,  and 
servile  of  Abb6s.  But  the  greater  part  of  the  society  which 
Frederic  had  assembled  round  him  was  drawn  from  France. 


248  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Maupertuis  had  acquired  some  celebrity  by  the  journey  which 
he  had  made  to  Lapland  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining,  by 
actual  measurement,  the  shape  of  our  planet.  He  was  placed 
in  the  chair  of  the  Academy  of  Berlin,  a  humble  imitation  of 
the  renowned  academy  of  Paris.  Baculard  D'Arnaud,  a  young 
poet  who  was  thought  to  have  given  promise  of  great  things, 
had  been  induced  to  quit  his  country  and  to  reside  at  the 
Prussian  Court.  The  Marquess  D'Argens  was  among  the 
King's  favourite  companions,  on  account,  as  it  should  seem, 
of  the  strong  opposition  between  their  characters.  The  parts 
of  D'Argens  were  good,  and  his  manners  those  of  a  finished 
French  gentleman ;  but  his  whole  soul  was  dissolved  in  sloth, 
timidity,  and  self-indulgence.  He  was  one  of  that  abject  class 
of  minds  which  are  superstitious  without  being  religious.  Hat- 
ing Christianity  with  a  rancour  which  made  him  incapable  of 
rational  inquiry,  unable  to  see  in  the  harmony  and  beauty  of 
the  universe  the  traces  of  divine  power  and  wisdom,  he  was 
the  slave  of  dreams  and  omens,  would  not  sit  down  to  table 
with  thirteen  in  company,  turned  pale  if  the  salt  fell  towards 
him,  begged  his  guests  not  to  cross  their  knives  and  forks  on 
their  plates,  and  would  not  for  the  world  commence  a  journey 
on  Friday.  His  health  was  a  subject  of  constant  anxiety  to 
him.  Whenever  his  head  ached  or  his  pulse  beat  quick,  his 
dastardly  fears  and  effeminate  precautions  were  the  jest  of  all 
Berlin.  All  this  suited  the  King's  purpose  admirably.  He 
wanted  somebody  by  whom  he  might  be  amused,  and  whom 
he  might  despise.  When  he  wished  to  pass  half  an  hour  in 
easy  polished  conversation,  D'Argens  was  an  excellent  com- 
panion ;  when  he  wanted  to  vent  his  spleen  and  contempt, 
D'Argens  was  an  excellent  butt. 

With  these  associates,  and  others  of  the  same  class,  Frederic 
loved  to  spend  the  time  which  he  could  steal  from  public  cares. 
He  wished  his  supper-parties  to  be  gay  and  easy.  He  invited 
his  guests  to  lay  aside  all  restraint,  and  to  forget  that  he  was 
at  the  head  of  a  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  soldiers,  and  was 
absolute  master  of  the  life  and  liberty  of  all  who  sat  at  meat 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  249 

with  him.  There  was,  therefore,  at  these  parties  the  outward 
show  of  ease.  The  wit  and  learning  of  the  company  were  os- 
tentatiously displayed.  The  discussions  on  history  and  litera- 
ture were  often  highly  interesting.  But  the  absurdity  of  all 
the  religions  known  among  men  was  the  chief  topic  of  con- 
versation ;  and  the  audacity  with  which  doctrines  and  names 
venerated  throughout  Christendom  were  treated  on  these  oc- 
casions startled  even  persons  accustomed  to  the  society  of 
French  and  English  freethinkers.  Real  liberty,  however,  or 
real  affection,  was  in  this  brilliant  society  not  to  be  found. 
Absolute  kings  seldom  have  friends ;  and  Frederic's  faults 
were  such  as,  even  where  perfect  equality  exists,  make  friend- 
ship exceedingly  precarious.  He  had,  indeed,  many  qualities 
which,  on  a  first  acquaintance,  were  captivating.  His  conver- 
sation was  lively ;  his  manners,  to  those  whom  he  desired  to 
please,  were  even  caressing.  No  man  could  flatter  with  more 
delicacy.  No  man  succeeded  more  completely  in  inspiring 
those  who  approached  him  with  vague  hopes  of  some  great 
advantage  from  his  kindness.  But  under  this  fair  exterior  he 
was  a  tyrant,  suspicious,  disdainful,  and  malevolent.  He  had 
one  taste  which  may  be  pardoned  in  a  boy,  but  which,-  when 
habitually  and  deliberately  indulged  by  a  man  of  mature  age 
and  strong  understanding,  is  almost  invariably  the  sign  of  a 
bad  heart  —  a  taste  for  severe  practical  jokes.  If  a  courtier 
was  fond  of  dress,  oil  was  flung  over  his  richest  suit.  If  he 
was  fond  of  money,  some  prank  was  invented  to  make  him 
disburse  more  than  he  could  spare.  If  he  was  hypochondri- 
acal,  he  was  made  to  believe  that  he  had  the  dropsy.  If  he 
had  particularly  set  his  heart  on  visiting  a  place,  a  letter  was 
forged  to  frighten  him  from  going  thither.  These  things,  it 
may  be  said,  are  trifles.  They  are  so ;  but  they  are  indications, 
not  to  be  mistaken,  of  a  nature  to  which  the  sight  of  human 
suffering  and  human  degradation  is  an  agreeable  excitement. 

Frederic  had  a  keen  eye  for  the  foibles  of  others,  and  loved 
to  communicate  his  discoveries.  He  had  some  talent  for  sar- 
casm, and  considerable  skill  in  detecting  the  sore  places  where 


250  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

sarcasm  would  be  most  acutely  felt.  His  vanity,  as  well  as  his 
malignity,  found  gratification  in  the  vexation  and  confusion  of 
those  who  smarted  under  his  caustic  jests.  Yet  in  truth  his 
success  on  these  occasions  belonged  quite  as  much  to  the  king 
as  to  the  wit.  We  read  that  Commodus  descended,  sword  in 
hand,  into  the  arena  against  a  wretched  gladiator,  armed  only 
with  a  foil  of  lead,  and,  after  shedding  the  blood  of  the  help- 
less victim,  struck  medals  to  commemorate  the  inglorious  vic- 
tory. The  triumphs  of  Frederic  in  the  war  of  repartee  were 
of  much  the  same  kind.  How  to  deal  with  him  was  the  most 
puzzling  of  questions.  To  appear  constrained  in  his  presence 
was  to  disobey  his  commands  and  to  spoil  his  amusement. 
Yet  if  his  associates  were  enticed  by  his  graciousness  to  in- 
dulge in  the  familiarity  of  a  cordial  intimacy,  he  was  certain 
to  make  them  repent  of  their  presumption  by  some  cruel  hu- 
miliation. To  resent  his  affronts  was  perilous  ;  yet  not  to  re- 
sent them  was  to  deserve  and  to  invite  them.  In  his  view, 
those  who  mutinied  were  insolent  and  ungrateful ;  those  who 
submitted  were  curs  made  to  receive  bones  and  kickings  with 
the  same  fawning  patience.  It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  conceive 
how  anything  short  of  the  rage  of  hunger  should  have  induced 
men  to  bear  the  misery  of  being  the  associates  of  the  Great 
King.  It  was  no  lucrative  post.  His  Majesty  was  as  severe 
and  economical  in  his  friendships  as  in  the  other  charges  of 
his  establishment,  and  as  unlikely  to  give  a  rix-dollar  too  much 
for  his  guests  as  for  his  dinners.  The  sum  which  he  allowed 
to  a  poet  or  a  philosopher  was  the  very  smallest  sum  for  which 
such  poet  or  philosopher  could  be  induced  to  sell  himself  into 
slavery ;  and  the  bondsman  might  think  himself  fortunate  if 
what  had  been  so  grudgingly  given  was  not,  after  years  of 
suffering,  rudely  and  arbitrarily  withdrawn. 

Potsdam  was,  in  truth,  what  it  was  called  by  one  of  its  most 
illustrious  inmates,  the  Palace  of  Alcina.  At  the  first  glance 
it  seemed  to  be  a  delightful  spot,  where  every  intellectual  and 
physical  enjoyment  awaited  the  happy  adventurer.  Every  new- 
comer was  received  with  eager  hospitality,  intoxicated  with 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  251 

flattery,  encouraged  to  expect  prosperity  and  greatness.  It  was 
in  vain  that  a  long  succession  of  favourites  who  had  entered 
that  abode  with  delight  and  hope,  and  who,  after  a  short  term 
of  delusive  happiness,  had  been  doomed  to  expiate  their  folly 
by  years  of  wretchedness  and  degradation,  raised  their  voices 
to  warn  the  aspirant  who  approached  the  charmed  threshold. 
Some  had  wisdom  enough  to  discover  the  truth  early,  and 
spirit  enough  to  fly  without  looking  back ;  others  lingered  on 
to  a  cheerless  and  unhonoured  old  age.  We  have  no  hesita- 
tion in  saying  that  the  poorest  author  of  that  time  in  London, 
sleeping  on  a  bulk,  dining  in  a  cellar,  with  a  cravat  of  paper, 
and  a  skewer  for  a  shirt-pin,  was  a  happier  man  than  any  of 
the  literary  inmates  of  Frederic's  Court.  .  .  . 

Maria  Theresa  had  never  for  a  moment  forgotten  the  great 
wrong  which  she  had  received  at  the  hand  of  Frederic. 
Young  and  delicate,  just  left  an  orphan,  just  about  to  be  a 
mother,  she  had  been  compelled  to  fly  from  the  ancient  capital 
of  her  race ;  she  had  seen  her  fair  inheritance  dismembered 
by  robbers,  and  of  those  robbers  he  had  been  the  foremost. 
Without  a  pretext,  without  a  provocation,  in  defiance  of  the 
most  sacred  engagements,  he  had  attacked  the  helpless  ally 
whom  he  was  bound  to  defend.  The  Empress  Queen  had  the 
faults  as  well  as  the  virtues  which  are  connected  with  quick 
sensibility  and  a  high  spirit.  There  was  no  peril  which  she 
was  not  ready  to  brave,  no  calamity  which  she  was  not  ready 
to  bring  on  her  subjects,  or  on  the  whole  human  race,  if  only 
she  might  once  taste  the  sweetness  of  a  complete  revenge. 
Revenge,  too,  presented  itself,  to  her  narrow  and  superstitious 
mind,  in  the  guise  of  duty.  Silesia  had  been  wrested  not  only 
from  the  House  of  Austria,  but  from  the  Church  of  Rome. 
The  conqueror  had  indeed  permitted  his  new  subjects  to 
worship  God  after  their  own  fashion  ;  but  this  was  not  enough. 
To  bigotry  it  seemed  an  intolerable  hardship  that  the  Catholic 
Church,  having  long  enjoyed  ascendency,  should  be  compelled 
to  content  itself  with  equality.  Nor  was  this  the  only  circum- 
stance which  led  Maria  Theresa  to  regard  her  enemy  as  the 


252  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

enemy  of  God.  The  profaneness  of  Frederic's  writings  and 
conversation,  and  the  frightful  rumours  which  were  circulated 
respecting  the  immorality  of  his  private  life,  naturally  shocked 
a  woman  who  believed  with  the  firmest  faith  all  that  her  con- 
fessor told  her,  and  who,  though  surrounded  by  temptations, 
though  young  and  beautiful,  though  ardent  in  all  her  passions, 
though  possessed  of  absolute  power,  had  preserved  her  fame 
unsullied  even  by  the  breath  of  slander. 

To  recover  Silesia,  to  humble  the  dynasty  of  Hohenzollern 
to  the  dust,  was  the  great  object  of  her  life.  She  toiled  during 
many  years  for  this  end,  with  zeal  as  indefatigable  as  that 
which  the  poet  ascribed  to  the  stately  goddess  who  tired  out 
her  immortal  horses  in  the  work  of  raising  the  nations  against 
Troy,  and  who  offered  to  give  up  to  destruction  her  darling 
Sparta  and  Mycenae,  if  only  she  might  once  see  the  smoke 
going  up  from  the  palace  of  Priam.  With  even  such  a  spirit 
did  the  proud  Austrian  Juno  strive  to  array  against  her  foe  a 
coalition  such  as  Europe  had  never  seen.  Nothing  would 
content  her  but  that  the  whole  civilized  world,  from  the  White 
Sea  to  the  Adriatic,  from  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  the  pastures  of 
the  wild  horses  of  the  Tanais,  should  be  combined  in  arms 
against  one  petty  State. 

She  early  succeeded  by  various  arts  in  obtaining  the  adhe- 
sion of  Russia.  An  ample  share  of  spoil  was  promised  to  the 
King  of  Poland ;  and  that  prince,  governed  by  his  favourite, 
Count  Bruhl,  readily  promised  the  assistance  of  the  Saxon 
forces.  The  great  difficulty  was  with  France.  That  the 
Houses  of  Bourbon  and  of  Hapsburg  should  ever  cordially 
co-operate  in  any  great  scheme  of  European  policy  had  long 
been  thought,  to  use  the  strong  expression  of  Frederic,  just  as 
impossible  as  that  -fire  and  water  should  amalgamate.  The 
whole  history  of  the  Continent  during  two  centuries  and  a 
half  had  been  the  history  of  the  mutual  jealousies  and  en- 
mities of  France  and  Austria.  Since  the  administration  of 
Richelieu,  above  all,  it  had  been  considered  as  the  plain  policy 
of  the  Most  Christian  King  to  thwart  on  all  occasions  the 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  253 

Court  of  Vienna,  and  to  protect  every  member  of  the  Ger- 
manic body  who  stood  up  against  the  dictation  of  the  Caesars. 
Common  sentiments  of  religion  had  been  unable  to  mitigate 
this  strong  antipathy.  The  rulers  of  France,  even  while 
clothed  in  the  Roman  purple,  even  while  persecuting  the 
heretics  of  Rochelle  and  Auvergne,  had  still  looked  with 
favour  on  the  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  princes  who  were 
struggling  against  the  chief  of  the  empire.  If  the  French 
ministers  had  paid  any  respect  to  the  traditional  rules  handed 
down  to  them  through  many  generations,  they  would  have 
acted  towards  Frederic  as  the  greatest  of  their  predecessors 
acted  towards  Gustavus  Adolphus.  That  there  was  deadly 
enmity  between  Prussia  and  Austria  was  of  itself  a  sufficient 
reason  for  close  friendship  between  Prussia  and  France.  With 
France  Frederic  could  never  have  any  serious  controversy. 
His  territories  were  so  situated  that  his  ambition,  greedy  and 
unscrupulous  as  it  was,  could  never  impel  him  to  attack  her 
of  his  own  accord.  He  was  more  than  half  a  Frenchman ; 
he  wrote,  spoke,  read  nothing  but  French ;  he  delighted  in 
French  society ;  the  admiration  of  the  French  he  proposed  to 
himself  as  the  best  reward  of  all  his  exploits.  It  seemed 
incredible  that  any  French  Government,  however  notorious 
for  levity  or  stupidity,  could  spurn  away  such  an  ally. 

The  Court  of  Vienna,  however,  did  not  despair.  The  Aus- 
trian diplomatists  propounded  a  new  scheme  of  politics,  which, 
it  must  be  owned,  was  not  altogether  without  plausibility.  The 
great  powers,  according  to  this  theory,  had  long  been  under  a 
delusion.  They  had  looked  on  each  other  as  natural  enemies, 
while,  in  truth,  they  were  natural  allies.  A  succession  of  cruel 
wars  had  devastated  Europe,  had  thinned  the  population,  had 
exhausted  the  public  resources,  had  loaded  governments  with 
an  immense  burden  of  debt ;  and  when,  after  two  hundred 
years  of  murderous  hostility  or  of  hollow  truce,  the  illustrious 
Houses  whose  enmity  had  distracted  the  world  sat  down  to 
count  their  gains,  to  what  did  the  real  advantage  on  either  side 
amount  ?  Simply  to  this,  that  they  had  kept  each  other  from 


254  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

thriving.  It  was  not  the  King  of  France,  it  was  not  the 
Emperor,  who  had  reaped  the  fruits  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
or  of  the  War  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction.  Those  fruits  had  been 
pilfered  by  states  of  the  second  and  third  rank,  which,  secured 
against  jealousy  by  their  insignificance,  had  dexterously  aggran- 
dized themselves  while  pretending  to  serve  the  animosity  of 
the  great  chiefs  of  Christendom.  While  the  lion  and  tiger 
were  tearing  each  other,  the  jackal  had  run  off  into  the  jungle 
with  the  prey.  The  real  gainer  by  the  Thirty  Years'  War  had 
been  neither  France  nor  Austria,  but  Sweden.  The  real  gainer 
by  the  War  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  had  been  neither  France 
nor  Austria,  but  the  upstart  of  Brandenburg.  -France  had 
made  great  efforts,  had  added  largely  to  her  military  glory, 
and  largely  to  her  public  burdens.  And  for  what  end  ?  Merely 
that  Frederic  might  rule  Silesia.  For  this,  and  this  alone,  one 
French  army,  wasted  by  sword  and  famine,  had  perished  in 
Bohemia  ;  and  another  had  purchased  with  floods  of  the  noblest 
blood,  the  barren  glory  of  Fontenoy.  And  this  prince,  for 
whom  France  had  suffered  so  much,  was  he  a  grateful,  was  he 
even  an  honest  ally  ?  Had  he  not  been  as  false  to  the  Court 
of  Versailles  as  to  the  Court  of  Vienna  ?  Had  he  not  played, 
on  a  large  scale,  the  same  part  which,  in  private  life,  is  played 
by  the  vile  agent  of  chicane  who  sets  his  neighbours  quarrelling, 
involves  them  in  costly  and  interminable  litigation,  and  betrays 
them  to  each  other  all  round,  certain  that,  whoever  may  be 
ruined,  he  shall  be  enriched  ?  Surely  the  true  wisdom  of  the 
great  powers  was  to  attack,  not  each  other,  but  this  common 
barrator,  who,  by  inflaming  the  passions  of  both,  by  pretending 
to  serve  both,  and  by  deserting  both,  had  raised  himself  above 
the  station  to  which  he  was  born.  The  great  object  of  Austria 
was  to  regain  Silesia ;  the  great  object  of  France  was  to  obtain 
an  accession  of  territory  on  the  side  of  Flanders.  If  they  took 
opposite  sides,  the  result  would  probably  be  that,  after  a  war 
of  many  years,  after  the  slaughter  of  many  thousands  of  brave 
men,  after  the  waste  of  many  millions  of  crowns,  they  would 
lay  down  their  arms  without  having  achieved  either  object ; 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  255 

but  if  they  came  to  an  understanding,  there  would  be  no  risk 
and  no  difficulty.  Austria  would  willingly  make  in  Belgium 
such  cessions  as  France  could  not  expect  to  obtain  by  ten 
pitched  battles'.  Silesia  would  easily  be  annexed  to  the  mon- 
archy of  which  it  had  long  been  a  part.  The  union  of  two 
such  powerful  governments  would  at  once  overawe  the  King 
of  Prussia.  If  he  resisted,  one  short  campaign  would  settle 
his  fate.  France  and  Austria,  long  accustomed  to  rise  from 
the  game  of  war  both  losers,  would,  for  the  first  time,  both  be 
gainers.  There  could  be  no  room  for  jealousy  between  them. 
The  power  of  both  would  be  increased  at  once ;  the  equilib- 
rium between  them  would  be  preserved  ;  and  the  only  suf- 
ferer would  be  a  mischievous  and  unprincipled  buccaneer  who 
deserved  no  tenderness  from  either. 

These  doctrines,  attractive  from  their  novelty  and  ingenuity, 
soon  became  fashionable  at  the  supper-parties  and  in  the  coffee- 
houses of  Paris,  and  were  espoused  by  every  gay  marquis  and 
every  facetious  abbe  who  was  admitted  to  see  Madame  de 
Pompadour's  hair  curled  and  powdered.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, to  any  political  theory  that  the  strange  coalition  between 
France  and  Austria  owed  its  origin.  The  real  motive  which 
induced  the  great  Continental  powers  to  forget  their  old  ani- 
mosities and  their  old  State  maxims  was  personal  aversion  to 
the  King  of  Prussia.  This  feeling  was  strongest  in  Maria 
Theresa ;  but  it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  her.  Frederic, 
in  some  respects  a  good  master,  was  emphatically  a  bad  neigh- 
bour. That  he  was  hard  in  all  dealings,  and  quick  to  take  all 
advantages,  was  not  his  most  odious  fault.  His  bitter  and  scoff- 
ing speech  had  inflicted  keener  wounds  than  his  ambition.  In 
his  character  of  wit  he  was  under  less  restraint  than  even  in 
his  character  of  ruler.  Satirical  verses  against  all  the  princes 
and  ministers  of  Europe  were  ascribed  to  his  pen.  In  his 
letters  and  conversation  he  alluded  to  the  greatest  potentates 
of  the  age  in  terms  which  would  have  better  suited  Colle",  in 
a  war  of  repartee  with  young  Crebillon  at  Pelletier's  table, 
than  a  great  sovereign  speaking  of  great  sovereigns.  About 


256  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

women  he  was  in  the  habit  of  expressing  himself  in  a  manner 
which  it  was  impossible  for  the  meekest  of  women  to  forgive ; 
and,  unfortunately  for  him,  almost  the  whole  Continent  was 
then  governed  by  women  who  were  by  no  means  conspicuous 
for  meekness.  Maria  Theresa  herself  had  not  escaped  his 
scurrilous  jests.  The  Empress  Elizabeth  of  Russia  knew  that 
her  gallantries  afforded  him  a  favourite  theme  for  ribaldry  and 
invective.  Madame  de  Pompadour,  who  was  really  the  head 
of  the  French  Government,  had  been  even  more  keenly  galled. 
She  had  attempted,  by  the  most  delicate  flattery,  to  propitiate 
the  King  of  Prussia ;  but  her  messages  had  drawn  from  him 
only  dry  and  sarcastic  replies.  The  Empress  Queen  took  a 
very  different  course.  Though  the  haughtiest  of  princesses, 
though  the  most  austere  of  matrons,  she  forgot  in  her  thirst 
for  revenge  both  the  dignity  of  her  race  and  the  purity  of  her 
character,  and  condescended  to  flatter  the  low-born  and  low- 
minded  concubine,  who,  having  acquired  influence  by  prosti- 
tuting herself,  retained  it  by  prostituting  others.  Maria  Theresa 
actually  wrote  with  her  own  hand  a  note,  full  of  expressions  of 
esteem  and  friendship,  to  her  dear  cousin,  the  daughter  of  the 
butcher  Poisson,  the  wife  of  the  publican  D'Etioles,  the  kid- 
napper of  young  girls  for  the  harem  of  an  old  rake  —  a  strange 
cousin  for  the  descendant  of  so  many  Emperors  of  the  West ! 
The  mistress  was  completely  gained  over,  and  easily  carried  her 
point  with  Louis,  who  had,  indeed,  wrongs  of  his  own  to  resent. 
His  feelings  were  not  quick ;  but  contempt,  says  the  Eastern  prov- 
erb, pierces  even  through  the  shell  of  the  tortoise;  and  neither 
prudence  nor  decorum  had  ever  restrained  Frederic  from  ex- 
pressing his  measureless  contempt  for  the  sloth,  the  imbecility, 
and  the  baseness  of  Louis.  France  was  thus  induced  to  join 
the  coalition ;  and  the  example  of  France  determined  the  con- 
duct of  Sweden,  then  completely  subject  to  French  influence. 
The  enemies  of  Frederic  were  surely  strong  enough  to  attack 
him  openly ;  but  they  were  desirous  to  add  to  all  their  other 
advantages  the  advantage  of  a  surprise.  He  was  not,  however, 
a  man  to  be  taken  off  his  guard.  He  had  tools  in  every  Court ; 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  257 

and  he  now  received  from  Vienna,  from  Dresden,  and  from 
Paris,  accounts  so  circumstantial  and  so  consistent  that  he 
could  not  doubt  of  his  danger.  He  learnt  that  he  was  to  be 
assailed  at  once  by  France,  Austria,  Russia,  Saxony,  Sweden, 
and  the  Germanic  body  ;  that  the  greater  part  of  his  dominions 
was  to  be  portioned  out  among  his  enemies ;  that  France, 
which  from  her  geographical  position  could  not  directly  share 
in  his  spoils,  was  to  receive  an  equivalent  in  the  Netherlands ; 
that  Austria  was  to  have  Silesia,  and  the  Czarina  East  Prus- 
sia ;  that  Augustus  of  Saxony  expected  Magdeburg ;  and  that 
Sweden  would  be  rewarded  with  part  of  Pomerania.  If  these 
designs  succeeded,  the  House  of  Brandenburg  would  at  once 
sink  in  the  European  system  to  a  place  lower  than  that  of  the 
Duke  of  Wurtemberg  or  the  Margrave  of  Baden. 

And  what  hope  was  there  that  these  designs  would  fail  ? 
No  such  union  of  the  continental  powers  had  been  seen  for 
ages.  A  less  formidable  confederacy  had  in  a  week  conquered 
all  the  provinces  of  Venice,  when  Venice  was  at  the  height  of 
power,  wealth,  and  glory.  A  less  formidable  confederacy  had 
compelled  Louis  the  Fourteenth  to  bow  down  his  haughty 
head  to  the  very  earth.  A  less  formidable  confederacy  has, 
within  our  own  memory,  subjugated  a  still  mightier  empire 
and  abased  a  still  prouder  name.  Such  odds  had  never  been 
heard  of  in  war.  The  people  whom  Frederic  ruled  were  not 
five  millions.  The  population  of  the  countries  which  were 
leagued  against  him  amounted  to  a  hundred  millions.  The  dis- 
proportion in  wealth  was  at  least  equally  great.  Small  commu- 
nities, actuated  by  strong  sentiments  of  patriotism  or  loyalty, 
have  sometimes  made  head  against  great  monarchies  weakened 
by  factions  and  discontents.  But  small  as  was  Frederic's  king- 
dom, it  probably  contained  a  greater  number  of  disaffected 
subjects  than  were  to  be  found  in  all  the  states  of  his  enemies. 
Silesia  formed  a  fourth  part  of  his  dominions ;  and  from  the 
Silesians,  born  under  Austrian  princes,  the  utmost  that  he 
could  expect  was  apathy.  From  the  Silesian  Catholics  he  could 
hardly  expect  anything  but  resistance. 


258  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Some  states  have  been  enabled  by  their  geographical  posi- 
tion to  defend  themselves  with  advantage  against  immense 
force.  The  sea  has  repeatedly  protected  England  against  the 
fury  of  the  whole  Continent.  The  Venetian  Government,  driven 
from  its  possessions  on  the  land,  could  still  bid  defiance  to  the 
confederates  of  Cambray  from  the  Arsenal  amidst  the  lagoons. 
More  than  one  great  and  well-appointed  army,  which  regarded 
the  shepherds  of  Switzerland  as  an  easy  prey,  has  perished  in 
the  passes  of  the  Alps.  Frederic  had  no  such  advantage.  The 
form  of  his  states,  their  situation,  the  nature  of  the  ground, 
all  were  against  him.  His  long,  scattered,  straggling  territory 
seemed  to  have  been  shaped  with  an  express  view  to  the  con- 
venience of  invaders,  and  was  protected  by  no  sea,  by  no  chain 
of  hills.  Scarcely  any  corner  of  it  was  a  week's  march  from 
the  territory  of  the  enemy.  The  capital  itself,  in  the  event  of 
war,  would  be  constantly  exposed  to  insult.  In  truth,  there  was 
hardly  a  politician  or  a  soldier  in  Europe  who  doubted  that 
the  conflict  would  be  terminated  in  a  very  few  days  by  the 
prostration  of  the  House  of  Brandenburg. 

Nor  was  Frederic's  own  opinion  very  different.  He  antici- 
pated nothing  short  of  his  own  ruin,  and  of  the  ruin  of  his 
family.  Yet  there  was  still  a  chance,  a  slender  chance,  of 
escape.  His  states  had  at  least  the  advantage  of  a  central 
position ;  his  enemies  were  widely  separated  from  each  other, 
and  could  not  conveniently  unite  their  overwhelming  forces 
on  one  point.  They  inhabited  different  climates,  and  it  was 
probable  that  the  season  of  the  year  which  would  be  best 
suited  to  the  military  operations  of  one  portion  of  the  League 
would  be  unfavourable  to  those  of  another  portion.  The  Prus- 
sian monarchy,  too,  was  free  from  some  infirmities  which  were 
found  in  empires  far  more  extensive  and  magnificent.  Its 
effective  strength  for  a  desperate  struggle  was  not  to  be  meas- 
ured merely  by  the  number  of  square  miles  or  the  number  of 
people.  In  that  spare  but  well-knit  and  well-exercised  body 
there  was  nothing  but  sinew  and  muscle  and  bone.  No  pub- 
lic creditors  looked  for  dividends.  No  distant  colonies  required 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  259 

defence.  No  Court  filled  with  flatterers  and  mistresses  de- 
voured the  pay  of  fifty  battalions.  The  Prussian  army,  though 
far  inferior  in  number  to  the  troops  which  were  about  to  be 
opposed  to  it,  was  yet  strong  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  ex- 
tent of  the  Prussian  dominions.  It  was  also  admirably  trained 
and  admirably  officered,  accustomed  to  obey  and  accustomed 
to  conquer.  The  revenue  was  not  only  unincumbered  by  debt, 
but  exceeded  the  ordinary  outlay  in  time  of  peace.  Alone  of 
all  the  European  princes,  Frederic  had  a  treasure  laid  up  for 
a  day  of  difficulty.  Above  all,  he  was  one,  and  his  enemies 
were  many.  In  their  camps  would  certainly  be  found  the 
jealousy,  the  dissension,  the  slackness  inseparable  from  coali- 
tions ;  on  his  side  was  the  energy,  the  unity,  the  secrecy  of 
a  strong  dictatorship.  To  a  certain  extent  the  deficiency  of 
military  means  might  be  supplied  by  the  resources  of  military 
art.  Small  as  the  King's  army  was,  when  compared  with  the 
six  hundred  thousand  men  whom  the  confederates  could  bring 
into  the  field,  celerity  of  movement  might  in  some  degree 
compensate  for  deficiency  of  bulk.  It  was  thus  just  possible 
that  genius,  judgment,  resolution,  and  good  luck  united  might 
protract  the  struggle  during  a  campaign  or  two ;  and  to  gain 
even  a  month  was  of  importance.  It  could  not  be  long  before 
the  vices  which  are  found  in  all  extensive  confederacies  would 
begin  to  show  themselves.  Every  member  of  the  League 
would  think  his  own  share  of  the  war  too  large,  and  his  own 
share  of  the  spoils  too  small.  Complaints  and  recriminations 
would  abound.  The  Turk  might  stir  on  the  Danube ;  the 
statesmen  of  France  might  discover  the  error  which  they  had 
committed  in  abandoning  the  fundamental  principles  of  their 
national  policy.  Above  all,  death  might  rid  Prussia  of  its  most 
formidable  enemies.  The  war  was  the  effect  of  the  personal 
aversion  with  which  three  or  four  sovereigns  regarded  Frederic  ; 
and  the  decease  of  any  one  of  those  sovereigns  might  produce 
a  complete  revolution  in  the  state  of  Europe. 

In    the    midst  of    a    horizon    generally   dark    and    stormy 
Frederic  could   discern   one   bright   spot.     The  peace   which 


260  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

had  been  concluded  between  England  and  France  in  1748 
had  been  in  Europe  no  more  than  an  armistice,  and  had  not 
even  been  an  armistice  in  the  other  quarters  of  the  globe.  In 
India  the  sovereignty  of  the  Carnatic  was  disputed  between 
two  great  Mussulman  houses ;  Fort  Saint  George  had  taken 
one  side,  Pondicherry  the  other ;  and  in  a  series  of  battles 
and  sieges  the  troops  of  Lawrence  and  Clive  had  been  opposed 
to  those  of  Dupleix.  A  struggle  less  important  in  its  conse- 
quences, but  not  less  likely  to  produce  irritation,  was  carried 
on  between  those  French  and  English  adventurers  who  kid- 
napped negroes  and  collected  gold  dust  on  the  coast  of  Guinea. 
But  it  was  in  North  America  that'  the  emulation  and  mutual 
aversion  of  the  two  nations  were  most  conspicuous.  The  French 
attempted  to  hem  in  the  English  colonists  by  a  chain  of  mili- 
tary posts,  extending  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi.  The  English  took  arms.  The  wild  aboriginal 
tribes  appeared  on  each  side  mingled  with  the  pale-faces. 
Battles  were  fought ;  forts  were  stormed ;  and  hideous  stories 
about  stakes,  scalpings,  and  death-songs  reached  Europe,  and 
inflamed  that  national  animosity  which  the  rivalry  of  ages  had 
produced.  The  disputes  between  France  and  England  came 
to  a  crisis  at  the  very  time  when  the  tempest  which  had  been 
gathering  was  about  to  burst  on  Prussia.  The  tastes  and  inter- 
ests of  Frederic  would  have  led  him,  if  he  had  been  allowed 
an  option,  to  side  with  the  House  of  Bourbon.  But  the  folly 
of  the  Court  of  Versailles  left  him  no  choice.  France  became 
the  tool  of  Austria ;  and  Frederic  was  forced  to  become  the 
ally  of  England.  He  could  not,  indeed,  expect  that  a  power 
which  covered  the  sea  with  its  fleets,  and  which  had  to  make 
war  at  once  on  the"  Ohio  and  the  Ganges,  would  be  able  to 
spare  a  large  number  of  troops  for  operations  in  Germany. 
But  England,  though  poor  compared  with  the  England  of 
our  time,  was  far  richer  than  any  country  on  the  Continent. 
The  amount  of  her  revenue  and  the  resources  which  she 
found  in  her  credit,  though  they  may  be  thought  small  by  a 
generation  which  has  seen  her  raise  a  hundred  and  thirty 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  261 

millions  in  a  single  year,  appeared  miraculous  to  the  politi- 
cians of  that  age.  A  very  moderate  portion  of  her  wealth,  ex- 
pended by  an  able  and  economical  prince,  in  a  country  where 
prices  were  low,  would  be  sufficient  to  equip  and  maintain  a 
formidable  army. 

Such  was  the  situation  in  which  Frederic  found  himself. 
He  saw  the  whole  extent  of  his  peril.  He  saw  that  there  was 
still  a  faint  possibility  of  escape ;  and,  with  prudent  temerity, 
he  determined  to  strike  the  first  blow.  It  was  in  the  month 
of  August,  1756,  that  the  great  war  of  the  Seven  Years  com- 
menced. The  King  demanded  of  the  Empress  Queen  a 
distinct  explanation  of  her  intentions,  and  plainly  told  her 
that  he  should  consider  a  refusal  as  a  declaration  of  war. 
"  I  want,"  he  said,  "  no  answer  in  the  style  of  an  oracle." 
He  received  an  answer  at  once  haughty  and  evasive.  In  an 
instant  the  rich  electorate  of  Saxony  was  overflowed  by  sixty 
thousand  Prussian  troops.  Augustus  with  his  army  occupied 
a  strong  position  at  Pirna.  The  Queen  of  Poland  was  at 
Dresden.  In  a  few  days  Pirna  was  blockaded  and  Dresden 
was  taken.  The  first  object  of  Frederic  was  to  obtain  posses- 
sion of  the  Saxon  State  papers ;  for  those  papers,  he  well 
knew,  contained  ample  proofs  that,  though  apparently  an 
aggressor,  he  was  really  acting  in  self-defence.  The  Queen  of 
Poland,  as  well  acquainted  as  Frederic  with  the  importance  of 
those  documents,  had  packed  them  up,  had  concealed  them  in 
her  bedchamber,  and  was  about  to  send  them  off  to  Warsaw, 
when  a  Prussian  officer  made  his  appearance.  In  the  hope 
that  no  soldier  would  venture  to  outrage  a  lady,  a  queen,  a 
daughter  of  an  emperor,  the  mother-in-law  of  a  dauphin,  she 
placed  herself  before  the  trunk,  and  at  length  sat  down  on  it. 
But  all  resistance  was  vain.  The  papers  were  carried  to 
Frederic,  who  found  in  them,  as  he  expected,  abundant 
evidence  of  the  designs  of  the  coalition.  The  most  important 
documents  were  instantly  published,  and  the  effect  of  the 
publication  was  great.  It  was  clear  that,  of  whatever  sins  the 
King  of  Prussia  might  formerly  have  been  guilty,  he  was 


262  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

now  the  injured  party,  and  had  merely  anticipated  a  blow 
intended  to  destroy  him. 

The  Saxon  camp  at  Pirna  was  in  the  meantime  closely 
invested ;  but  the  besieged  were  not  without  hopes  of  succour. 
A  great  Austrian  army  under  Marshal  Brown  was  about  to 
pour  through  the  passes  which  separate  Bohemia  from 
Saxony.  Frederic  left  at  Pirna  a  force  sufficient  to  deal  with 
the  Saxons,  hastened  into  Bohemia,  encountered  Brown  at 
Lowositz,  and  defeated  him.  This  battle  decided  the  fate  of 
Saxony.  Augustus  and  his  favourite  Bruhl  fled  to  Poland. 
The  whole  army  of  the  Electorate  capitulated.  From  that 
time  till  the  end  of  the  war,  Frederic  treated  Saxony  as  a  part 
of  his  dominions,  or,  rather,  he  acted  towards  the  Saxons  in 
a  manner  which  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  whole  meaning  of 
that  tremendous  sentence,  "  subjectos  tanquam  suos,  viles 
tanquam  alienos."  Saxony  was  as  much  in  his  power  as 
Brandenburg ;  and  he  had  no  such  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
Saxony  as  he  had  in  the  welfare  of  Brandenburg.  He  accord- 
ingly levied  troops  and  exacted  contributions  throughout  the 
enslaved  province  with  far  more  rigour  than  in  any  part  of  his 
own  dominions.  Seventeen  thousand  men  who  had  been  in  the 
camp  at  Pirna  were  half  compelled,  half  persuaded,  to  enlist 
under  their  conqueror.  Thus,  within  a  few  weeks  from  the 
commencement  of  hostilities,  one  of  the  confederates  had  been 
disarmed,  and  his  weapons  were  now  pointed  against  the  rest. 

The  winter  put  a  stop  to  military  operations.  All  had 
hitherto  gone  well.  But  the  real  tug  of  war  was  still  to  come. 
It  was  easy  to  foresee  that  the  year  1757  would  be  a  memo- 
rable era  in  the  history  of  Europe. 

The  King's  scheme  for  the  campaign  was  simple,  bold, 
and  judicious.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  with  an  English  and 
Hanoverian  army  was  in  Western  Germany,  and  might  be 
able  to  prevent  the  French  troops  from  attacking  Prussia. 
The  Russians,  confined  by  their  snows,  would  probably  not 
stir  till  the  spring  was  far  advanced.  Saxony  was  prostrated. 
Sweden  could  do  nothing  very  important.  During  a  few 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  263 

months  Frederic  would  have  to  deal  with  Austria  alone. 
Even  thus  the  odds  were  against  him.  But  ability  and  courage 
have  often  triumphed  against  odds  still  more  formidable. 

Early  in  1757  the  Prussian  army  in  Saxony  began  to  move. 
Through  four  defiles  in  the  mountains  they  came  pouring  into 
Bohemia.  Prague  was  the  King's  first  mark ;  but  the  ulterior 
object  was  probably  Vienna.  At  Prague  lay  Marshal  Brown 
with  one  great  army.  Daun,  the  most  cautious  and  fortunate  of 
the  Austrian  captains,  was  advancing  with  another.  Frederic 
determined  to  overwhelm  Brown  before  Daun  should  arrive. 
On  the  sixth  of  May  was  fought,  under  those  walls  which,  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years  before,  had  witnessed  the  victory  of 
the  Catholic  league  and  the  flight  of  the  unhappy  Palatine,  a 
battle  more  bloody  than  any  which  Europe  saw  during  the 
long  interval  between  Malplaquet  and  Eylau.  The  King  and 
Prince  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  were  distinguished  on  that 
day  by  their  valour  and  exertions.  But  the  chief  glory  was 
with  Schwerin.  When  the  Prussian  infantry  wavered,  the 
stout  old  Marshal  snatched  the  colours  from  an  ensign,  and, 
waving  them  in  the  air,  led  back  his  regiment  to  the  charge. 
Thus  at  seventy-two  years  of  age  he  fell  in  the  thickest 
battle,  still  grasping  the  standard  which  bears  the  black  eagle 
on  the  field  argent.  The  victory  remained  with  the  King ; 
but  it  had  been  dearly  purchased.  Whole  columns  of  his 
bravest  warriors  had  fallen.  He  admitted  that  he  had  lost 
eighteen  thousand  men.  Of  the  enemy,  twenty-four  thousand 
had  been  killed,  wounded,  or  taken. 

Part  of  the  defeated  army  was  shut  up  in  Prague.  Part 
fled  to  join  the  troops  which,  under  the  command  of  Daun, 
were  now  close  at  hand.  Frederic  determined  to  play  over  the 
same  game  which  had  succeeded  at  Lowositz.  He  left  a  large 
force  to  besiege  Prague,  and  at  the  head  of  thirty  thousand 
men  he  marched  against  Daun.  The  cautious  Marshal,  though 
he  had  a  great  superiority  in  numbers,  would  risk  nothing. 
He  occupied  at  Kolin  a  position  almost  impregnable,  and 
awaited  the  attack  of  the  King. 


264  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

It  was  the  eighteenth  of  June,  a  day  which,  if  the  Greek 
superstition  still  retained  its  influence,  would  be  held  sacred  to 
Nemesis  —  a  day  on  which  the  two  greatest  princes  of  modern 
times  were  taught  by  a  terrible  experience  that  neither  skill 
nor  valour  can  fix  the  inconstancy  of  fortune.  The  battle 
began  before  noon,  and  part  of  the  Prussian  army  maintained 
the  contest  till  after  the  midsummer  sun  had  gone  down. 
But  at  length  the  King  found  that  his  troops,  having  been 
repeatedly  driven  back  with  frightful  carnage,  could  no  longer 
be  led  to  the  charge.  He  was  with  difficulty  persuaded  to 
quit  the  field.  The  officers  of  his  personal  staff  were  under 
the  necessity  of  expostulating  with  him,  and  one  of  them  took 
the  liberty  to  say,  "  Does  your  Majesty  mean  to  storm  the 
batteries  alone  ? "  Thirteen  thousand  of  his  bravest  followers 
had  perished.  Nothing  remained  for  him  but  to  retreat  in 
good  order,  to  raise  the  siege  of  Prague,  and  to  hurry  his 
army  by  different  routes  out  of  Bohemia. 

This  stroke  seemed  to  be  final.  Frederic's  situation  had  at 
best  been  such  that  only  an  uninterrupted  run  of  good  luck 
could  save  him,  as  it  seemed,  from  ruin.  And  now,  almost 
in  the  outset  of  the  contest,  he  had  met  with  a  check  which, 
even  in  a  war  between  equal  powers,  would  have  been  felt  as 
serious.  He  had  owed  much  to  the  opinion  which  all  Europe 
entertained  of  his  army.  Since  his  accession,  his  soldiers  had 
in  many  successive  battles  been  victorious  over  the  Austrians. 
But  the  glory  had  departed  from  his  arms.  All  whom  his 
malevolent  sarcasms  had  wounded  made  haste  to  avenge  them- 
selves by  scoffing  at  the  scoffer.  His  soldiers  had  ceased  to 
confide  in  his  star.  In  every  part  of  his  camp  his  disposi- 
tions were  severely  criticized.  Even  in  his  own  family  he  had 
detractors.  His  next  brother,  William,  heir  presumptive,  or 
rather,  in  truth,  heir  apparent  to  the  throne,  and  great-grand- 
father of  the  present  King,  could  not  refrain  from  lamenting 
his  own  fate  and  that  of  the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  once  so 
great  and  so  prosperous,  but  now,  by  the  rash  ambition  of  its 
chief,  made  a  by-word  to  all  nations.  These  complaints,  and 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  265 

some  blunders  which  William  committed  during  the  retreat 
from  Bohemia,  called  forth  the  bitter  displeasure  of  the  inex- 
orable King.  The  prince's  heart  was  broken  by  the  cutting 
reproaches  of  his  brother ;  he  quitted  the  army,  retired  to  a 
country  seat,  and  in  a  short  time  died  of  shame  and  vexation. 

It  seemed  that  the  King's  distress  could  hardly  be  increased. 
Yet  at  this  moment  another  blow  not  less  terrible  than  that  of 
Kolin  fell  upon  him.  The  French  under  Marshal  D'Estrees 
had  invaded  Germany.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  had  given 
them  battle  at  Hastembeck  and  had  been  defeated.  In  order 
to  save  the  Electorate  of  Hanover  from  entire  subjugation,  he 
had  made  at  Closter  Seven  an  arrangement  with  the  French 
Generals  which  left  them  at  liberty  to  turn  their-  arms  against 
the  Prussian  dominions. 

That  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  Frederic's  distress  he 
lost  his  mother  just  at  this  time ;  and  he  appears  to  have  felt 
the  loss  more  than  was  to  be  expected  from  the  hardness  and 
severity  of  his  character.  In  truth,  his  misfortunes  had  now 
cut  to  the  quick.  The  mocker,  the  tyrant,  the  most  rigorous, 
the  most  imperious,  the  most  cynical  of  men,  was  very  un- 
happy. His  face  was  so  haggard  and  his  form  so  thin  that 
when,  on  his  return  from  Bohemia,  he  passed  through  Leipsic 
the  people  hardly  knew  him  again.  His  sleep  was  broken  ; 
the  tears,  in  spite  of  himself,  often  started  into  his  eyes ;  and 
the  grave  began  to  present  itself  to  his  agitated  mind  as  the 
best  refuge  from  misery  and  dishonour.  His  resolution  was 
fixed  never  to  be  taken  alive,  and  never  to  make  peace  on 
condition  of  descending  from  his  place  among  the  powers  of 
Europe.  He  saw  nothing  left  for  him  except  to  die ;  and  he 
deliberately  chose  his  mode  of  death.  He  always  carried  about 
with  him  a  sure  and  speedy  poison  in  a  small  glass  case ;  and 
to  the  few  in  whom  he  placed  confidence  he  made  no  mystery 
of  his  resolution. 

But  we  should  very  imperfectly  describe  the  state  of  Frederic's 
mind  if  we  left  out  of  view  the  laughable  peculiarities  which 
contrasted  so  singularly  with  the  gravity,  energy,  and  harshness 


266  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  his  character.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  the  tragic  or 
the  comic  predominated  in  the  strange  scene  which  was  then 
acting.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  great  King's  calamities,  his  pas- 
sion for  writing  indifferent  poetry  grew  stronger  and  stronger. 
Enemies  all  round  him,  despair  in  his  heart,  pills  of  corrosive 
sublimate  hidden  in  his  clothes,  he  poured  forth  hundreds 
upon  hundreds  of  lines,  hateful  to  gods  and  men,  the  insipid 
dregs  of  Voltaire's  Hippocrene,  the  faint  echo  of  the  lyre  of 
Chaulieu.  It  is  amusing  to  compare  what  he  did  during  the 
last  months  of  1757  with  what  he  wrote  during  the  same  time. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  equal  portion  of  the  life  of 
Hannibal,  of  Caesar,  or  of  Napoleon,  will  bear  a  comparison 
with  that  short  period,  the  most  brilliant  in  the  history  of 
Prussia  and  of  Frederic.  Yet  at  this  very  time  the  scanty 
leisure  of  the  illustrious  warrior  was  employed  in  producing 
odes  and  epistles  a  little  better  than  Gibber's  and  a  little 
worse  than  Hayley's.  Here  and  there  a  manly  sentiment  which 
deserves  to  be  in  prose  makes  its  appearance  in  company  with 
Prometheus  and  Orpheus,  Elysium  and  Acheron,  the  plaintive 
Philomel,  the  poppies  of  Morpheus,  and  all  the  other  frippery 
which,  like  a  robe  tossed  by  a  proud  beauty  to  her  waiting- 
woman,  has  long  been  contemptuously  abandoned  by  genius  to 
mediocrity.  We  hardly  know  any  instance  of  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  human  nature  so  striking  and  so  grotesque  as 
the  character  of  this  haughty,  vigilant,  resolute,  sagacious  blue- 
stocking, half  Mithridates  and  half  Trissotin,  bearing  up  against 
a  world  in  arms,  with  an  ounce  of  poison  in  one  pocket  and 
a  quire  of  bad  verses  in  the  other. 

Frederic  had  some  time  before  made  advances  towards  a 
reconciliation  with  Voltaire ;  and  some  civil  letters  had  passed 
between  them.  After  the  battle  of  Kolin  their  epistolary 
intercourse  became,  at  least  in  seeming,  friendly  and  confiden- 
tial. We  do  not  know  any  collection  of  Letters  which  throws 
so  much  light  on  the  darkest  and  most  intricate  parts  of  human 
nature,  as  the  correspondence  of  these  strange  beings  after 
they  had  exchanged  forgiveness.  Both  felt  that  the  quarrel 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  267 

had  lowered  them  in  the  public  estimation.  They  admired 
each  other.  They  stood  in  need  of  each  other.  The  great 
King  wished  to  be  handed  down  to  posterity  by  the  great 
Writer.  The  great  Writer  felt  himself  exalted  by  the  homage 
of  the  great  King.  Yet  the  wounds  which  they  had  inflicted 
on  each  other  were  too  deep  to  be  effaced,  or  even  perfectly 
healed.  Not  only  did  the  scars  remain ;  the  sore  places  often 
festered  and  bled  afresh.  The  letters  consisted  for  the  most 
part  of  compliments,  thanks,  offers  of  service,  assurances  of 
attachment.  But  if  anything  brought  back  to  Frederic's  recol- 
lection the  cunning  and  mischievous  pranks  by  which  Voltaire 
had  provoked  him,  some  expression  of  contempt  and  dis- 
pleasure broke  forth  in  the  midst  of  eulogy.  It  was  much 
worse  when  anything  recalled  to  the  mind  of  Voltaire  the  out- 
rages which  he  and  his  kinswoman  had  suffered  at  Frankfort. 
All  at  once  his  flowing  panegyric  was  turned  into  invective. 
"  Remember  how  you  behaved  to  me.  For  your  sake  I  have 
lost  the  favour  of  my  native  King.  For  your  sake  I  am  an 
exile  from  my  country.  I  loved  you.  I  trusted  myself  to  you. 
I  had  no  wish  but  to  end  my  life  in  your  service.  And  what 
was  my  reward  ?  Stripped  of  all  that  you  had  bestowed  on 
me,  the  key,  the  order,  the  pension,  I  was  forced  to  fly  from 
your  territories.  I  was  hunted  as  if  I  had  been  a  deserter 
from  your  grenadiers.  I  was  arrested,  insulted,  plundered.  My 
niece  was  dragged  through  the  mud  of  Frankfort  by  your, 
soldiers,  as  if  she  had  been  some  wretched  follower  of  your 
camp.  You  have  great  talents.  You  have  good  qualities.  But 
you  have  one  odious  vice.  You  delight  in  the  abasement  of 
your  fellow-creatures.  You  have  brought  disgrace  on  the  name 
of  philosopher.  You  have  given  some  colour  to  the  slanders 
of  the  bigots,  who  say  that  no  confidence  can  be  placed  in  the 
justice  or  humanity  of  those  who  reject  the  Christian  faith." 
Then  the  King  answers,  with  less  heat  but  equal  severity, 
"  You  know  that  you  behaved  shamefully  in  Prussia.  It  was 
well  for  you  that  you  had  to  deal  with  a  man  so  indulgent  to 
the  infirmities  of  genius  as  I  am.  You  richly  deserved  to  see 


268  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  inside  of  a  dungeon.  Your  talents  are  not  more  widely 
known  than  your  faithlessness  and  your  malevolence.  The 
grave  itself  is  no  asylum  from  your  spite.  Maupertuis  is  dead ; 
but  you  still  go  on  calumniating  and  deriding  him,  as  if  you 
had  not  made  him  miserable  enough  while  he  was  living.  Let 
us  have  no  more  of  this.  And  above  all,  let  me  hear  no 
more  of  your  niece.  I  am  sick  to  death  of  her  name.  I  can 
bear  with  your  faults  for  the  sake  of  your  merits ;  but  she  has 
not  written  Mahomet  or  Merope" 

An  explosion  of  this  kind,  it  might  be  supposed,  would 
necessarily  put  an  end  to  all  amicable  communication.  But  it 
was  not  so.  After  every  outbreak  of  ill  humour  this  extraor- 
dinary pair  became  more  loving  than  before,  and  exchanged 
compliments  and  assurances  of  mutual  regard  with  a  wonderful 
air  of  sincerity. 

It  may  well  be  supposed  that  men  who  wrote  thus  to  each 
other  were  not  very  guarded  in  what  they  said  of  each  other. 
The  English  ambassador,  Mitchell,  who  knew  that  the  King  of 
Prussia  was  constantly  writing  to  Voltaire  with  the  greatest 
freedom  on  the  most  important  subjects,  was  amazed  to  hear 
his  Majesty  designate  this  highly  favoured  correspondent  as  a 
bad-hearted  fellow,  the  greatest  rascal  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  And  the  language  which  the  poet  held  about  the  King 
was  not  much  more  respectful. 

It  would  probably  have  puzzled  Voltaire  himself  to  say  what 
was  his  real  feeling  towards  Frederic.  It  was  compounded  of 
all  sentiments  from  enmity  to  friendship  and  from  scorn  to 
admiration ;  and  the  proportions  in  which  these  elements  were 
mixed,  changed  every  moment.  The  pld  patriarch  resembled 
the  spoiled  child  who  screams,  stamps,  cuffs,  laughs,  kisses, 
and  cuddles  within  one  quarter  of  an  hour.  His  resentment 
was  not  extinguished ;  yet  he  was  not  without  sympathy  for 
his  old  friend.  As  a  Frenchman,  he  wished  success  to  the 
arms  of  his  country.  As  a  philosopher,  he  was  anxious  for 
the  stability  of  a  throne  on  which  a  philosopher  sat.  He 
longed  both  to  save  and  to  humble  Frederic.  There  was  one 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  269 

way,  and  only  one,  in  which  all  his  conflicting  feelings  could 
at  once  be  gratified.  If  Frederic  were  preserved  by  the  inter- 
ference of  France,  if  it  were  known  that  for  that  interference 
he  was  indebted  to  the  mediation  of  Voltaire,  this  would 
indeed  be  delicious  revenge ;  this  would  indeed  be  to  heap 
coals  of  fire  on  that  haughty  head.  Nor  did  the  vain  and 
restless  poet  think  it  impossible  that  he  might,  from  his 
hermitage  near  the  Alps,  dictate  peace  to  Europe.  D'Estrees 
had  quitted  Hanover  and  the  command  of  the  French  army 
had  been  intrusted  to  the  Duke  of  Richelieu,  a  man  whose 
chief  distinction  was  derived  from  his  success  in  gallantry. 
Richelieu  was  in  truth  the  most  eminent  of  that  race  of 
seducers  by  profession  who  furnished  Crebillon  the  younger 
and  Laclos  with  models  for  their  heroes.  In  his  earlier  days 
the  royal  house  itself  had  not  been  secure  from  his  presump- 
tuous love.  He  was  believed  to  have  carried  his  conquests 
into  the  family  of  Orleans ;  and  some  suspected  that  he  was 
not  unconcerned  in  the  mysterious  remorse  which  embittered 
the  last  hours  of  the  charming  mother  of  Louis  the  Fifteenth. 
But  the  Duke  was  now  sixty  years  old.  With  a  heart  deeply 
corrupted  by  vice,  a  head  long  accustomed  to  think  only  on 
trifles,  an  impaired  constitution,  an  impaired  fortune,  and, 
worst  of  all,  a  very  red  nose,  he  was  entering  on  a  dull, 
frivolous,  and  unrespected  old  age.  Without  one  qualification 
for  military  command,  except  that  personal  courage  which  was 
common  between  him  and  the  whole  nobility  of  France,  he 
had  been  placed  at  the  head  of  the  army  of  Hanover ;  and 
in  that  situation  he  did  his  best  to  repair,  by  extortion  and 
corruption,  the  injury  which  he  had  done  to  his  property  by 
a  life  of  dissolute  profusion. 

The  Duke  of  Richelieu  to  the  end  of  his  life  hated  the 
philosophers  as  a  sect,  not  for  those  parts  of  their  system 
which  a  good  and  wise  man  would  have  condemned,  but  for 
their  virtues,  for  their  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  and  for  their 
hatred  of  those  social  abuses  of  which  he  was  himself  the 
personification.  But  he,  like  many  of  those  who  thought  with 


270  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

him,  excepted  Voltaire  from  the  list  of  proscribed  writers. 
He  frequently  sent  flattering  letters  to  Ferney.  He  did  the 
patriarch  the  honour  to  borrow  money  of  him,  and  even 
carried  this  condescending  friendship  so  far  as  to  forget  to 
pay  the  interest.  Voltaire  thought  that  it  might  be  in  his 
power  to  bring  the  Duke  and  the  King  of  Prussia  into  com- 
munication with  each  other.  He  wrote  earnestly  to  both  ;  and 
he  so  far  succeeded  that  a  correspondence  between  them  was 
commenced. 

But  it  was  to  very  different  means  that  Frederic  was  to  owe 
his  deliverance.  At  the  beginning  of  November,  the  net 
seemed  to  have  closed  completely  round  him.  The  Russians 
were  in  the  field,  and  were  spreading  devastation  through  his 
eastern  provinces.  Silesia  was  overrun  by  the  Austrians.  A 
great  French  army  was  advancing  from  the  west  under  the 
command  of  Marshal  Soubise,  a  prince  of  the  great  Armorican 
house  of  Rohan.  Berlin  itself  had  been  taken  and  plundered 
by  the  Croatians.  Such  was  the  situation  from  which  Frederic 
extricated  himself  with  dazzling  glory  in  the  short  space  of 
thirty  days. 

He  marched  first  against  Soubise.  On  the  fifth  of  Novem- 
ber the  armies  met  at  Rossbach.  The  French  were  two  to  one  ; 
but  they  were  ill-disciplined,  and  their  general  was  a  dunce. 
The  tactics  of  Frederic  and  the  well-regulated  valour  of  the 
Prussian  troops  obtained  a  complete  victory.  Seven  thousand 
of  the  invaders  were  made  prisoners.  Their  guns,  their 
colours,  their  baggage,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  conquerors. 
Those  who  escaped  fled  as  confusedly  as  a  mob  scattered  by 
cavalry.  Victorious  in  the  West,  the  King  turned  his  arms 
towards  Silesia.  In  that  quarter  everything  seemed  to  be  lost. 
Breslau  had  fallen  ;  and  Charles  of  Lorraine,  with  a  mighty 
power,  held  the  whole  province.  On  the  fifth  of  December, 
exactly  one  month  after  the  battle  of  Rossbach,  Frederic,  with 
forty  thousand  men,  and  Prince  Charles,  at  the  head  of  not 
less  than  sixty  thousand,  met  at  Leuthen,  hard  by  Breslau. 
The  King,  who  was,  in  general,  perhaps  too  much  inclined  to 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  271 

• 

consider  the  common  soldier  as  a  mere  machine,  resorted,  on 
this  great  day,  to  means  resembling  those  which  Bonaparte 
afterwards  employed  with  such  signal  success  for  the  purpose 
of  stimulating  military  enthusiasm.  The  principal  officers  were 
convoked.  Frederic  addressed  them  with  great  force  and 
pathos ;  and  directed  them  to  speak  to  their^  men  as  he  had 
spoken  to  them.  When  the  armies  were  set  in  battle  array, 
the  Prussian  troops  were  in  a  state  of  fierce  excitement ;  but 
their  excitement  showed  itself  after  the  fashion  of  a  grave 
people.  The  columns  advanced  to  the  attack  chanting,  to  the 
sound  of  drums  and  fifes,  the  rude  hymns  of  the  old  Saxon 
Sternholds.  They  had  never  fought  so  well ;  nor  had  the 
genius  of  their  chief  ever  been  so  conspicuous.  "  That  battle," 
said  Napoleon,  "was  a  masterpiece.  Of  itself  it  is  sufficient 
to  entitle  Frederic  to  a  place  in  the  first  rank  among  generals." 
The  victory  was  complete.  Twenty-seven  thousand  Austrians 
were  killed,  wounded,  or  taken ;  fifty  stand  of  colours,  a  hun- 
dred guns,  four  thousand  waggons,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Prussians.  Breslau  opened  its  gates  ;  Silesia  was  reconquered  ; 
Charles  of  Lorraine  retired  to  hide  his  shame  and  sorrow  at 
Brussels ;  and  Frederic  allowed  his  troops  to  take  some  repose 
in  winter-quarters,  after  a  campaign  to  the  vicissitudes  of 
which  it  will  be  difficult  to  find  any  parallel  in  ancient  or 
modern  history. 

The  King's  fame  filled  all  the  world.  He  had  during  the 
last  year  maintained  a  contest,  on  terms  of  advantage,  against 
three  powers,  the  weakest  of  which  had  more  than  three 
times  his  resources.  He  had  fought  four  great  pitched  battles 
against  superior  forces.  Three  of  these  battles  he  had  gained ; 
and  the  defeat  of  Kolin,  repaired  as  it  had  been,  rather  raised 
than  lowered  his  military  renown.  The  victory  of  Leuthen  is, 
to  this  day,  the  proudest  on  the  roll  of  Prussian  fame.  Leipsic, 
indeed,  and  Waterloo  produced  consequences  more  important 
to  mankind.  But  the  glory  of  Leipsic  must  be  shared  by  the 
Prussians  with  the  Austrians  and  Russians ;  and  at  Waterloo 
the  British  infantry  bore  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day. 


272  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

The  victory  of  Rossbach  was,  in  a  military  point  of  view,  less 
honourable  than  that  of  Leuthen ;  for  it  was  gained  over  an 
incapable  general  and  a  disorganized  army ;  but  the  moral 
effect  which  it  produced  was  immense.  All  the  preceding 
triumphs  of  Frederic  had  been  triumphs  over  Germans,  and 
could  excite  no  .emotions  of  national  pride  among  the  German 
people.  It  was  impossible  that  a  Hessian  or  a  Hanoverian 
could  feel  any  patriotic  exultation  at  hearing  that  Pomeranians 
had  slaughtered  Moravians,  or  that  Saxon  banners  had  been 
hung  in  the  churches  of  Berlin.  Indeed,  though  the  military 
character  of  the  Germans  justly  stood  high  throughout  the 
world,  they  could  boast  of  no  great  day  which  belonged  to 
them  as  a  people ;  of  no  Agincourt,  of  no  Bannockburn. 
Most  of  their  victories  had  been  gained  over  each  other ; 
and  their  most  splendid  exploits  against  foreigners  had  been 
achieved  under  the  command  of  Eugene,  who  was  himself  a 
foreigner.  The  news  of  the  battle  of  Rossbach  stirred  the 
blood  of  the  whole  of  the  mighty  population  from  the  Alps 
to  the  Baltic,  and  from  the  borders  of  Courland  to  those  of 
Lorraine.  Westphalia  and  Lower  Saxony  had  been  deluged 
by  a  great  host  of  strangers,  whose  speech  was  unintelligible, 
and  whose  petulant  and  licentious  manners  had  excited  the 
strongest  feelings  of  disgust  and  hatred.  That  great  host  had 
been  put  to  flight  by  a  small  band  of  German  warriors,  led  by 
a  prince  of  German  blood  on  the  side  of  father  and  mother, 
and  marked  by  the  fair  hair  and  the  clear  blue  eye  of  Germany. 
Never  since  the  dissolution  of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne 
had  the  Teutonic  race  won  such  a  field  against  the  French. 
The  tidings  called  forth  a  general  burst  of  delight  and  pride 
from  the  whole  of  the  great  family  which  spoke  the  various 
dialects  of  the  ancient  language  of  Arminius.  The  fame  of 
Frederic  began  to  supply,  in  some  degree,  the  place  of  a  com- 
mon government  and  of  a  common  capital.  It  became  a  rallying 
point  for  all  true  Germans,  a  subject  of  mutual  congratulation 
to  the  Bavarian  and  the  Westphalian,  to  the  citizen  of  Frank- 
fort and  the  citizen  of  Nuremberg.  Then  first  it  was  manifest 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  273 

that  the  Germans  were  truly  a  nation.  Then  first  was  discernible 
that  patriotic  spirit  which  in  1813  achieved  the  great  deliver- 
ance of  central  Eutope,  and  which  still  guards,  and  long  will 
guard,  against  foreign  ambition  the  old  freedom  of  the  Rhine. 
Nor  were  the  effects  produced  by  that  celebrated  day 
merely  political.  The  greatest  masters  of  German  poetry  and 
eloquence  have  admitted  that,  though  the  great, King  neither 
valued  nor  understood  his  native  language,  though  he  looked 
on  France  as  the  only  seat  of  taste  and  philosophy,  yet,  in 
his  own  despite,  he  did  much  to  emancipate  the  genius  of  his 
countrymen  from  the  foreign  yoke ;  and  that  in  the  act  of 
vanquishing  Soubise  he  was  unintentionally  rousing  the  spirit 
which  soon  began  to  question  the  literary  precedence  of 
Boileau  and  Voltaire.  So  strangely  do  events  confound  all  the 
plans  of  man.  A  prince  who  read  only  French,  who  wrote 
only  French,  who  aspired  to  rank  as  a  French  classic,  became, 
quite  unconsciously,  the  means  of  liberating  half  the  Continent 
from  the  dominion  of  that  French  criticism  of  which  he  was 
himself,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  a  slave.  Yet  even  the  enthu- 
siasm of  Germany  in  favour  of  Frederic  hardly  equalled  the 
enthusiasm  of  England.  The  birthday  of  our  ally  was  cele- 
brated with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  that  of  our  own  sovereign ; 
and  at  night  the  streets  of  London  were  in  a  blaze  with 
illuminations.  Portraits  of  the  Hero  of  Rossbach,  with  his 
cocked  hat  and  long  pigtail,  were  in  every  house.  An  atten- 
tive observer  will  at  this  day  find  in  the  parlours  of  old- 
fashioned  inns  and  in  the  portfolios  of  print-sellers  twenty 
portraits  of  Frederic  for  one  of  George  the  Second.  The 
sign-painters  were  everywhere  employed  in  touching  up 
Admiral  Vernon  into  the  King  of  Prussia.  This  enthusiasm 
was  strong  among  religious  people,  and  especially  among  the 
Methodists,  who  knew  that  the  French  and  Austrians  were 
Papists,  and  supposed  Frederic  to  be  the  Joshua  or  Gideon 
of  the  Reformed  Faith.  One  of  Whitefield's  hearers,  on  the 
day  on  which  thanks  for  the  battle  of  Leuthen  were  returned 
at  the  Tabernacle,  made  the  following  exquisitely  ludicrous 


274  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

entry  in  a  diary,  part  of  which  has  come  down  to  us :  "  The 
Lord  stirred  up  the  King  of  Prussia  and  his  soldiers  to  pray. 
They  kept  three  fast  days,  and  spent  abotit  an  hour  praying 
and  singing  psalms  before  they  engaged  the  enemy.  O  !  how 
good  it  is  to  pray  and  fight !  "  Some  young  Englishmen  of 
rank  proposed  to  visit  Germany  as  volunteers,  for  the  purpose 
of  learning  the  art  of  war  under  the  greatest  of  commanders. 
This  last  proof  of  British  attachment  and  admiration  Frederic 
politely  but  firmly  declined.  His  camp  was  no  place  for 
amateur  students  of  military  science.  The  Prussian  discipline 
was  rigorous  even  to  cruelty.  The  officers,  while  in  the  field, 
were  expected  to  practise  an  abstemiousness  and  self-denial 
such  as  was  hardly  surpassed  by  the  most  rigid  monastic 
orders.  However  noble  their  birth,  however  high  their  rank 
in  the  service,  they  were  not  permitted  to  eat  from  anything 
better  than  pewter.  It  was  a  high  crime  even  in  a  count  and 
field-marshal  to  have  a  single  silver  spoon  among  his  baggage. 
Gay  young  Englishmen  of  twenty  thousand  a  year,  accustomed 
to  liberty  and  to  luxury,  would  not  easily  submit  to  these  Spar- 
tan restraints.  The  King  could  not  venture  to  keep  them  in 
order  as  he  kept  his  own  subjects  in  order.  Situated  as  he 
was  with  respect  to  England,  he  could  not  well  imprison  or 
shoot  refractory  Howards  and  Cavendishes.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  example  of  a  few  fine  gentlemen,  attended  by 
chariots  and  livery  servants,  eating  in  plates,  and  drinking 
champagne  and  Tokay,  was  enough  to  corrupt  his  whole  army. 
He  thought  it  best  to  make  a  stand  at  first,  and  civilly  refused 
to  admit  such  dangerous  companions  among  his  troops. 

The  help  of  England  was  bestowed  in  a  manner  far  more 
useful  and  more  acceptable.  An  annual  subsidy  of  near  seven 
hundred  thousand  pounds  enabled  the  King  to  add  probably 
more  than  fifty  thousand  men  to  his  army.  Pitt,  now  at  the 
height  of  power  and  popularity,  undertook  the  task  of  defend- 
ing Western  Germany  against  France,  and  asked  Frederic  only 
for  the  loan  of  a  general.  The  general  selected  was  Prince 
Ferdinand  of  Brunswick,  who  had  attained  high  distinction 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  275 

in  the  Prussian  service.  He  was  put  at  the  head  of  an  army 
partly  English,  partly  Hanoverian,  partly  composed  of  merce- 
naries hired  from  the  petty  princes  of  the  empire.  He  soon 
vindicated  the  choice  of  the  two  allied  Courts,  and  proved 
himself  the  second  general  of  the  age. 

Frederic  passed  the  winter  at  Breslau  in  reading,  writing, 
and  preparing  for  the  next  campaign.  The  havoc  which  the 
war  had  made  among  his  troops  was  rapidly  repaired ;  and  in 
the  spring  of  1758  he  was  again  ready  for  the  conflict. 
Prince  Ferdinand  kept  the  French  in  check.  The  King  in 
the  meantime,  after  attempting  against  the  Austrians  some 
operations  which  led  to  no  very  important  result,  marched  to 
encounter  the  Russians,  who,  slaying,  burning,  and  wasting 
wherever  they  turned,  had  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  his 
realm.  He  gave  them  battle  at  Zorndorf,  near  Frankfort-on- 
the-Oder.  The  fight  was  long  and  bloody.  Quarter  was 
neither  given  nor  taken ;  for  the  Germans  and  Scythians 
regarded  each  other  with  bitter  aversion,  and  the  sight  of  the 
ravages  committed  by  the  half  savage  invaders  had  incensed 
the  King  and  his  army.  The  Russians  were  overthrown  with 
great  slaughter ;  and  for  a  few  months  no  further  danger  was 
to  be  apprehended  from  the  east. 

A  day  of  thanksgiving  was  proclaimed  by  the  King,  and 
was  celebrated  with  pride  and  delight  by  his  people.  The 
rejoicings  in  England  were  not  less  enthusiastic  or  less  sin- 
cere. This  may  be  selected  as  the  point  of  time  at  which  the 
military  glory  of  Frederic  reached  the  zenith.  In  the  short 
space  of  three  quarters  of  a  year  he  had  won  three  great  bat- 
tles over  the  armies  of  three  mighty  and  warlike  monarchies  — 
France,  Austria,  and  Russia. 

But  it  was  decreed  that  the  temper  of  that  strong  mind 
should  be  tried  by  both  extremes  of  fortune  in  rapid  succes- 
sion. Close  upon  this  series  of  triumphs  came  a  series  of 
disasters  such  as  would  have  blighted  the  fame  and  broken 
the  heart  of  almost  any  other  commander.  Yet  Frederic,  in 
the  midst  of  his  calamities,  was  still  an  object  of  admiration 


276  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  his  subjects,  his  allies,  and  his  enemies.  Overwhelmed  by 
adversity,  sick  of  life,  he  still  maintained  the  contest,  greater 
in  defeat,  in  flight,  and  in  what  seemed  hopeless  ruin  than  on 
the  fields  of  his  proudest  victories. 

Having  vanquished  the  Russians,  he  hastened  into  Saxony 
to  oppose  the  troops  of  the  Empress  Queen,  commanded  by 
Daun,  the  most  cautious,  and  Laudohn,  the  most  inventive 
and  enterprising,  of  her  generals.  These  two  celebrated  com- 
manders agreed  on  a  scheme  in  which  the  prudence  of  the 
one  and  the  vigour  of  the  other  seem  to  have  been  happily 
combined.  At  dead  of  night  they  surprised  the  King  in  his 
camp  at  Hochkirchen.  His  presence  of  mind  saved  his  troops 
from  destruction ;  but  nothing  could  save  them  from  defeat 
and  severe  loss.  Marshal  Keith  was  among  the  slain.  The 
first  roar  of  the  guns  roused  the  noble  exile  from  his  rest, 
and  he  was  instantly  in  the  front  of  the  battle.  He  received 
a  dangerous  wound,  but  refused  to  quit  the  field,  and  was  in 
the  act  of  rallying  his  broken  troops,  when  an  Austrian  bullet 
terminated  his  chequered  and  eventful  life. 

The  misfortune  was  serious.  But  of  all  generals  Frederic 
understood  best  how  to  repair  defeat,  and  Daun  understood 
least  how  to  improve  victory.  In  a  few  days  the  Prussian 
army  was  as  formidable  as  before  the  battle.  The  prospect 
was,  however,  gloomy.  An  Austrian  army  under  General 
Harsch  had  invaded  Silesia  and  invested  the  fortress  of 
Neisse.  Daun,  after  his  success  at  Hochkirchen,  had  written 
to  Harsch  in  very  confident  terms :  "  Go  on  with  your 
operations  against  Neisse.  Be  quite  at  ease  as  to  the  King. 
I  will  give  a  good  account  of  him."  In  truth,  the  position  of 
the  Prussians  was  full  of  difficulties.  Between  them  and 
Silesia  lay  the  victorious  army  of  Daun.  It  was  not  easy  for 
them  to  reach  Silesia  at  all.  If  they  did  reach  it,  they  left 
Saxony  exposed  to  the  Austrians.  But  the  vigour  and  activity 
of  Frederic  surmounted  every  obstacle.  He  made  a  circuitous 
march  of  extraordinary  rapidity,  passed  Daun,  hastened  into 
Silesia,  raised  the  siege  of  Neisse,  and  drove  Harsch  into 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  277 

Bohemia.  Daun  availed  himself  of  the  King's  absence  to 
attack  Dresden.  The  Prussians  defended  it  desperately.  The 
inhabitants  of  that  wealthy  and  polished  capital  begged  in  vain 
for  mercy  from  the  garrison  within  and  from  the  besiegers 
without.  The  beautiful  suburbs  were  burned  to  the  ground. 
It  was  clear  that  the  town,  if  won  at  all,  would  be  won  street 
by  street  by  the  bayonet.  At  this  conjuncture  came  news 
that  Frederic,  having  cleared  Silesia  of  his  enemies,  was 
returning  by  forced  marches  into  Saxony.  Daun  retired  from 
before  Dresden,  and  fell  back  into  the  Austrian  territories. 
The  King,  over  heaps  of  ruins,  made  his  triumphant  entry 
into  the  unhappy  metropolis,  which  had  so  cruelly  expiated 
the  weak  and  perfidious  policy  of  its  sovereign.  It  was  now 
the  twentieth  of  November.  The  cold  weather  suspended 
military  operations;  and  the  King  again  took  up  his  winter- 
quarters  at  Breslau. 

The  third  of  the  seven  terrible  years  was  over ;  and 
Frederic  still  stood  his  ground.  He  had  been  recently  tried  by 
domestic  as  well  as  by  military  disasters.  On  the  fourteenth  of 
October,  the  day  on  which  he  was  defeated  at  Hochkirchen  — 
the  day  on  the  anniversary  of  which,  forty-eight  years  later,  a 
defeat  far  more  tremendous  laid  the  Prussian  monarchy  in 
the  dust  —  died  Wilhelmina,  Margravine  of  Bareuth.  From  the 
accounts  which  we  have  of  her,  by  her  own  hand  and  by  the 
hands  of  the  most  discerning  of  her  contemporaries,  we 
should  pronounce  her  to  have  been  coarse,  indelicate,  and  a 
good  hater,  but  not  destitute  of  kind  and  generous  feelings. 
Her  mind,  naturally  strong  and  observant,  had  been  highly 
cultivated ;  and  she  was,  and  deserved  to  be,  Frederic's 
favourite  sister.  He  felt  the  loss  as  much  as  it  was  in  his  iron 
nature  to  feel  the  loss  of  anything  but  a  province  or  a  battle. 

At  Breslau,  during  the  winter,  he  was  indefatigable  in  his 
poetical  labours.  The  most  spirited  lines,  perhaps,  that  he 
ever  wrote,  are  to  be  found  in  a  bitter  lampoon  on  Louis  and 
Madame  de  Pompadour  which  he  composed  at  this  time 
and  sent  to  Voltaire.  The  verses  were,  indeed,  so  good,  that 


278  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Voltaire  was  afraid  that  he  might  himself  be  suspected  of 
having  written  them,  or  at  least  of  having  corrected  them  ; 
and  partly  from  fright,  partly,  we  fear,  from  love  of  mischief, 
sent  them  to  the  Duke  of  Choiseul,  then  prime  minister  of 
France.  Choiseul  very  wisely  determined  to  encounter  Frederic 
at  Frederic's  own  weapons,  and  applied  for  assistance  to 
Palissot,  who  had  some  skill  as  a  versifier  and  some  little 
talent  for  satire.  Palissot  produced  some  very  stinging  lines 
on  the  moral  and  literary  character  of  Frederic,  and  these 
lines  the  Duke  sent  to  Voltaire.  This  war  of  couplets,  follow- 
ing close  on  the  carnage  of  Zorndorf  and  the  conflagration  of 
Dresden,  illustrates  well  the  strangely  compounded  character 
of  the  King  of  Prussia. 

At  this  moment  he  was  assailed  by  a  new  enemy.  Benedict 
the  Fourteenth,  the  best  and  wisest  of  the  two  hundred  and 
fifty  successors  of  St.  Peter,  was  no  more.  During  the  short 
interval  between  his  reign  and  that  of  his  disciple  Ganganelli, 
the  chief  seat  in  the  Church  of  Rome  was  filled  by  Rezzonico, 
who  took  the  name  of  Clement  the  Thirteenth.  This  absurd 
priest  determined  to  try  what  the  weight  of  his  authority  could 
effect  in  favour  of  the  orthodox  Maria  Theresa  against  a 
heretic  king.  At  the  high  mass  on  Christmas-day,  a  sword 
with  a  rich  belt  and  scabbard,  a  hat  of  crimson  velvet  lined 
with  ermine,  and  a  dove  of  pearls,  the  mystic  symbol  of  the 
Divine  Comforter,  were  solemnly  blessed  by  the  supreme 
pontiff,  and  were  sent  with  great  ceremony  to  Marshal  Daun, 
the  conqueror  of  Kolin  and  Hochkirchen.  This  mark  of 
favour  had  more  than  once  been  bestowed  by  the  Popes  on 
the  great  champions  of  the  faith.  Similar  honours  had  been 
paid,  more  than  six  centuries  earlier,  by  Urban  the  Second  to 
Godfrey  of  Bouillon.  Similar  honours  had  been  conferred  on 
Alba  for  destroying  the  liberties  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  on 
John  Sobiesky  after  the  deliverance  of  Vienna.  But  the  pres- 
ents which  were  received  with  profound  reverence  by  the  Baron 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  in  the  eleventh  century,  and  which  had 
not  wholly  lost  their  value  even  in  the  seventeenth  century, 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  279 

appeared  inexpressibly  ridiculous  to  a  generation  which  read 
Montesquieu  and  Voltaire.  Frederic  wrote  sarcastic  verses  on 
the  gifts,  the  giver,  and  the  receiver.  But  the  public  wanted 
no  prompter ;  and  an  universal  roar  of  laughter  from  Peters- 
burg to  Lisbon  reminded  the  Vatican  that  the  age  of 
crusades  was  over. 

The  fourth  campaign,  the  most  disastrous  of  all  the  cam- 
paigns of  this  fearful  war,  had  now  opened.  The  Austrians 
filled  Saxony  and  menaced  Berlin.  The  Russians  defeated  the 
King's  generals  on  the  Oder,  threatened  Silesia,  effected  a 
junction  with  Laudohn,  and  intrenched  themselves  strongly 
at  Kunersdorf.  Frederic  hastened  to  attack  them.  A  great 
battle  was  fought.  During  the  earlier  part  of  the  day  every- 
thing yielded  to  the-  impetuosity  of  the  Prussians  and  to  the 
skill  of  their  chief.  The  lines  were  forced.  Half  the  Russian 
guns  were  taken.  The  King  sent  off  a  courier  to  Berlin  with 
two  lines  announcing  a  complete  victory.  But  in  the  mean- 
time the  stubborn  Russians,  defeated  yet  unbroken,  had  taken 
up  their  stand  in  an  almost  impregnable  position  on  an 
eminence  where  the  Jews  of  Frankfort  were  wont  to  bury 
their  dead.  Here  the  battle  recommenced.  The  Prussian 
infantry,  exhausted  by  six  hours  of  hard  fighting  under  a  sun 
which  equalled  the  tropical  heat,  were  yet  brought  up  repeat- 
edly to  the  attack,  but  in  vain.  The  King  led  three  charges 
in  person.  Two  horses  were  killed  under  him.  The  officers 
of  his  staff  fell  all  round  him.  His  coat  was  pierced  by  several 
bullets.  All  was  in  vain.  His  infantry  was  driven  back  with 
frightful  slaughter.  Terror  began  to  spread  fast  from  man  to 
man.  At  that  moment,  the  fiery  cavalry  of  Laudohn,  still 
fresh,  rushed  on  the  wavering  ranks.  Then  followed  an  uni- 
versal rout.  Frederic  himself  was  on  the  point  of  falling  into 
the  hands  of  the  conquerors,  and  was  with  difficulty  saved  by 
a  gallant  officer,  who,  at  the  head  of  a  handful  of  Hussars, 
made  a  good  diversion  of  a  few  minutes.  Shattered  in  body, 
shattered  in  mind,  the  King  reached  that  night  a  village 
which  the  Cossacks  had  plundered ;  and  there,  in  a  ruined 


280  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  deserted  farm-house,  flung  himself  on  a  heap  of  straw. 
He  had  sent  to  Berlin  a  second  despatch  very  different  from 
the  first :  "  Let  the  royal  family  leave  Berlin.  Send  the 
archives  to  Potsdam.  The  town  may  make  terms  with  the 
enemy." 

The  defeat  was,  in  truth,  overwhelming.  Of  fifty  thousand 
men  who  had  that  morning  marched  under  the  black  eagles, 
not  three  thousand  remained  together.  The  King  bethought 
him  again  of  his  corrosive  sublimate,  and  wrote  to  bid  adieu 
to  his  friends,  and  to  give  directions  as  to  the  measures  to 
be  taken  in  the  event  of  his  death.  "  I  have  no  resource 
left"  —  such  is  the  language  of  one  of  his  letters—  "all  is 
lost.  I  will  not  survive  the  ruin  of  my  country.  Farewell 
for  ever." 

But  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  confederates  prevented 
them  from  following  up  their  victory.  They  lost  a  few  days 
in  loitering  and  squabbling ;  and  a  few  days  improved  by 
Frederic  were  worth  more  than  the  years  of  other  men.  On 
the  morning  after  the  battle  he  had  got  together  eighteen 
thousand  of  his  troops.  Very  soon  his  force  amounted  to 
thirty  thousand.  Guns  were  procured  from  the  neighbouring 
fortresses ;  and  there  was  again  an  army.  Berlin  was  for  the 
present  safe ;  but  calamities  came  pouring  on  the  King  in 
uninterrupted  succession.  One  of  his  generals,  with  a  large 
body  of  troops,  was  taken  at  Maxen ;  another  was  defeated 
at  Meissen ;  and  when  at  length  the  campaign  of  1759  closed, 
in  the  midst  of  a  rigorous  winter,  the  situation  of  Prussia 
appeared  desperate.  The  only  consoling  circumstance  was 
that,  in  the  West,  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick  had  been  more 
fortunate  than  his  master ;  and  by  a  series  of  exploits,  of  which 
the  battle  of  Minden  was  the  most  glorious,  had  removed  all 
apprehension  of  danger  on  the  side  of  France. 

The  fifth  year  was  now  about  to  commence.  It  seemed 
impossible  that  the  Prussian  territories,  repeatedly  devastated 
by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  invaders,  could  longer  support 
the  contest.  But  the  King  carried  on  war  as  no  European 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  281 

power  has  ever  carried  on  war,  except  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety  during  the  great  agony  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. He  governed  his  kingdom  as  he  would  have  governed 
a  besieged  town,  not  caring  to  what  extent  property  was 
destroyed  or  the  pursuits  of  civil  life  suspended,  so  that  he 
did  but  make  head  against  the  enemy.  As  long  as  there  was 
a  man  left  in  Prussia,  that  man  might  carry  a  musket ;  as 
long  as  there  was  a  horse  left,  that  horse  might  draw  artillery. 
The  coin  was  debased,  the  civil  functionaries  were  left  unpaid ; 
in  some  provinces  civil  government  altogether  ceased  to  exist. 
But  there  were  still  rye-bread  and  potatoes ;  there  were  still 
lead  and  gunpowder ;  and  while  the  means  of  sustaining  and 
destroying  life  remained  Frederic  was  determined  to  fight  it 
out  to  the  very  last. 

The  earlier  part  of  the  campaign  of  1760  was  unfavourable 
to  him.  Berlin  was  again  occupied  by  the  enemy.  Great 
contributions  were  levied  on  the  inhabitants,  and  the  royal 
palace  was  plundered.  But  at  length,  after  two  years  of 
calamity,  victory  came  back  to  his  arms.  At  Lignitz  he 
gained  a  great  battle  over  Laudohn ;  at  Torgau,  after  a  day  of 
horrible  carnage,  he  triumphed  over  Daun.  The  fifth  year 
closed,  and  still  the  event  was  in  suspense.  In  the  countries 
where  the  war  had  raged  the  misery  and  exhaustion  were 
more  appalling  than  ever ;  but  still  there  were  left  men  and 
beasts,  arms  and  food,  and  still  Frederic  fought  on.  In  truth 
he  had  now  been  baited  into  savageness.  His  heart  was 
ulcerated  with  hatred.  The  implacable  resentment  with  which 
his  enemies  persecuted  him,  though  originally  provoked  by 
his  own  unprincipled  ambition,  excited  in  him  a  thirst  for 
vengeance  which  he  did  not  even  attempt  to  conceal.  "It  is 
hard,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  "for  a  man  to  bear  what 
I  bear.  I  begin  to  feel  that,  as  the  Italians  say,  revenge  is  a 
pleasure  for  the  gods.  My  philosophy  is  worn  out  by  suffer- 
ing. I  am  no  saint,  like  those  of  whom  we  read  in  the 
legends ;  and  I  will  own  that  I  should  die  content  if  only  I 
could  first  inflict  a  portion  of  the  misery  which  I  endure." 


282  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Borne  up  by  such  feelings,  he  struggled  with  various 
success,  but  constant  glory,  through  the  campaign  of  1761. 
On  the  whole  the  result  of  this  campaign  was  disastrous  to 
Prussia.  No  great  battle  was  gained  by  the  enemy ;  but,  in 
spite  of  the  desperate  bounds  of  the  hunted  tiger,  the  circle 
of  pursuers. was  fast  closing  round  him.  Laudohn  had  sur- 
prised the  important  fortress  of  Schweidnitz.  With  that 
fortress,  half  of  Silesia,  and  the  command  of  the  most  im- 
portant defiles  through  the  mountains,  had  been  transferred  to 
the  Austrians.  The  Russians  had  overpowered  the  King's 
generals  in  Pomerania.  The  country  was  so  completely  deso- 
lated that  he  began,  by  his  own  confession,  to  look  round  him 
with  blank  despair,  unable  to  imagine  where  recruits,  horses, 
or  provisions  were  to  be  found. 

Just  at  this  time  two  great  events  brought  on  a  complete 
change  in  the  relations  of  almost  all  the  powers  of  Europe. 
One  of  those  events  was  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Pitt  from  office ; 
the  other  was  the  death  of  the  Empress  Elizabeth  of  Russia. 

The  retirement  of  Pitt  seemed  to  be  an  omen  of  utter  ruin 
to  the  House  of  Brandenburg.  His  proud  and  vehement 
nature  was  incapable  of  anything  that  looked  like  either  fear 
or  treachery.  He  had  often  declared  that  while  he  was  in 
power  England  should  never  make  a  peace  of  Utrecht ;  should 
never,  for  any  selfish  object,  abandon  an  ally  even  in  the  last 
extremity  of  distress.  The  Continental  war  was  his  own  war. 
He  had  been  bold  enough  —  he  who  in  former  times  had 
attacked  with  irresistible  powers  of  oratory  the  Hanoverian 
policy  of  Carteret  and  the  German  subsidies  of  Newcastle  —  to 
declare  that  Hanover  ought  to  be  as  dear  to  us  as  Hampshire, 
and  that  he  would  conquer  America  in  Germany.  He  had 
fallen ;  and  the  power  which  he  had  exercised,  not  always  with 
discretion,  but  always  with  vigour  and  genius,  had  devolved  on 
a  favourite  who  was  the  representative  of  the  Tory  party  —  of 
the  party  which  had  thwarted  William,  which  had  persecuted 
Marlborough,  which  had  given  up  the  Catalans  to  the  venge- 
ance of  Philip  of  Anjou.  To  make  peace  with  France,  to 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  283 

shake  off,  with  all,  or  more  than  all,  the  speed  compatible  with 
decency,  every  Continental  connection  —  these  were  among 
the  chief  objects  of  the  new  Minister.  The  policy  then  fol- 
lowed inspired  Frederic  with  an  unjust  but  deep  and  bitter 
aversion  to  the  English  name,  and  produced  effects  which  are 
still  felt  throughout  the  civilized  world.  To  that  policy  it  was 
owing  that,  some  years  later,  England  could  not  find  on  the 
whole  Continent  a  single  ally  to  stand  by  her,  in  her  extreme 
need,  against  the  House  of  Bourbon.  To  that  policy  it  was 
owing  that  Frederic,  alienated  from  England,  was  compelled  to 
connect  himself  closely,  during  his  later  years,  with  Russia, 
and  was  induced  to  assist  in  that  great  crime,  the  fruitful 
parent  of  other  great  crimes,  the  first  partition  of  Poland. 

Scarcely  had  the  retreat  of  Mr.  Pitt  deprived  Prussia  of  her 
only  friend,  when  the  death  of  Elizabeth  produced  an  entire 
revolution  in  the  politics  of  the  North.  The  Grand  Duke 
Peter,  her  nephew,  who  now  ascended  the  Russian  throne,  was 
not  merely  free  from  the  prejudices  which  his  aunt  had  enter- 
tained against  Frederic,  but  was  a  worshipper,  a  servile  imitator 
of  the  great  King.  The  days  of  the  new  Czar's  government 
were  few  and  evil,  but  sufficient  to  produce  a  change  in  the 
whole  state  of  Christendom.  He  set  the  Prussian  prisoners  at 
liberty,  fitted  them  out  decently,  and  sent  them  back  to  their 
master ;  he  withdrew  his  troops  from  the  provinces  which 
Elizabeth  had  decided  on  incorporating  with  her  dominions ; 
and  he  absolved  all  those  Prussian  subjects  who  had  been 
compelled  to  swear  fealty  to  Russia  from  their  engagements. 

Not  content  with  concluding  peace  on  terms  favourable  to 
Prussia,  he  solicited  rank  in  the  Prussian  service,  dressed  him- 
self in  a  Prussian  uniform,  wore  the  Black  Eagle  of  Prussia 
on  his  breast,  made  preparations  for  visiting  Prussia,  in  order 
to  have  an  interview  with  trie  object  of  his  idolatry,  and  actu- 
ally sent  fifteen  thousand  excellent  troops  to  reinforce  the 
shattered  army  of  Frederic.  Thus  strengthened,  the  King 
speedily  repaired  the  losses  of  the  preceding  year,  reconquered 
Silesia,  defeated  Daun  at  Buckersdorf,  invested  and  retook 


284  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Schweidnitz,  and  at  the  close  of  the  year  presented  to  the 
forces  of  Maria  Theresa  a  front  as  formidable  as  before  the 
great  reverses  of  1759.  Before  the  end  of  the  campaign,  his 
friend  the  Emperor  Peter,  having,  by  a  series  of  absurd  in- 
sults to  the  institutions,  manners,  and  feelings  of  his  people, 
united  them  in  hostility  to  his  person  and  government,  was 
deposed  and  murdered.  The  Empress,  who,  under  the  title  of 
Catherine  the  Second,  now  assumed  the  supreme  power,  was 
at  the  commencement  of  her  administration  by  no  means  par- 
tial to  Frederic,  and  refused  to  permit  her  troops  to  remain 
under  his  command.  But  she  observed  the  peace  made  by 
her  husband  ;  and  Prussia  was  no  longer  threatened  by  danger 
from  the  East. 

England  and  France  at  the  same  time  paired  off  together. 
They  concluded  a  treaty  by  which  they  bound  themselves  to 
observe  neutrality  with  respect  to  the  German  war.  Thus  the 
coalitions  on  both  sides  were  dissolved ;  and  the  original  ene- 
mies, Austria  and  Prussia,  remained  alone  confronting  each 
other. 

Austria  had  undoubtedly  far  greater  means  than  Prussia, 
and  was  less  exhausted  by  hostilities ;  yet  it  seemed  hardly 
possible  that  Austria  could  effect  alone  what  she  had  in  vain 
attempted  to  effect  when  supporte'd  by  France  on  the  one  side, 
and  by  Russia  on  the  other.  Danger  also  began  to  menace 
the  Imperial  house  from  another  quarter.  The  Ottoman  Porte 
held  threatening  language,  and  a  hundred  thousand  Turks 
were  mustered  on  the  frontiers  of  Hungary.  The  proud  and 
revengeful  spirit  of  the  Empress  Queen  at  length  gave  way ; 
and  in  February,  1763,  the  peace  of  Hubertsburg  put  an  end 
to  the  conflict  which  had  during  seven  years  devastated  Ger- 
many. The  King  ceded  nothing.  The  whole  Continent  in 
arms  had  proved  unable  to  tear  Silesia  from  that  iron  grasp. 

The  war  was  over.  Frederic  was  safe.  His  glory  was  beyond 
the  reach  of  envy.  If  he  had  not  made  conquests  as  vast  as 
those  of  Alexander,  of  Caesar,  and  of  Napoleon  ;  if  he  had  not 
on  fields  of  battle  enjoyed  the  constant  success  of  Marlborough 


FREDERIC  THE  GREAT  285 

and  Wellington ;  he  had  yet  given  an  example  unrivalled  in 
history  of  what  capacity  and  resolution  can  effect  against  the 
greatest  superiority  of  power  and  the  utmost  spite  of  fortune. 
He  entered  Berlin  in  triumph,  after  an  absence  of  more  than 
six  years.  The  streets  were  brilliantly  lighted  up ;  and,  as  he 
passed  along  in  an  open  carriage  with  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick 
at  his  side,  the  multitude  saluted  him  with  loud  praises  and 
blessings.  He  was  moved  by  those  marks  of  attachment,  and 
repeatedly  exclaimed,  "  Long  live  my  dear  people  !  Long  live 
my  children!"  Yet,  even  in  the  midst  of  that  gay  spectacle, 
he  could  not  but  perceive  everywhere  the  traces  of  destruction 
and  decay.  The  city  had  been  more  than  once  plundered.  The 
population  had  considerably  diminished.  Berlin,  however,  had 
suffered  little  when  compared  with  most  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
The  ruin  of  private  fortunes,  the  distress  of  all  ranks,  was 
such  as  might  appal  the  firmest  mind.  Almost  every  province 
had  been  the  seat  of  war,  and  of  war  conducted  with  merciless 
ferocity.  Clouds  of  Croatians  had  descended  on  Silesia.  Tens 
of  thousands  of  Cossacks  had  been  let  loose  on  Pomerania  and 
Brandenburg.  The  mere  contributions  levied  by  the  invaders 
amounted,  it  was  said,  to  more  than  a  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  ;  and  the  value  of  what  they  extorted  was  probably  much 
less  than  the  value  of  what  they  destroyed.  The  fields  lay 
uncultivated.  The  very  seed-corn  had  been  devoured  in  the 
madness  of  hunger.  Famine,  and  contagious  maladies  pro- 
duced by  famine,  had  swept  away  the  herds  and  flocks ;  and 
there  was  reason  to  fear  that  a  great  pestilence  among  the 
human  race  was  likely  to  follow  in  the  train  of  that  tremen- 
dous war.  Near  fifteen  thousand  houses  had  been  burned  to 
the  ground.  The  population  of  the  kingdom  had  in  seven 
years  decreased  to  the  frightful  extent  of  ten  per  cent.  A  sixth 
of  the  males  capable  of  bearing  arms  had  actually  perished 
on  the  field  of  battle.  In  some  districts  no  labourers,  except 
women,  were  seen  in  the  fields  at  harvest-time.  In  others 
the  traveller  passed  shuddering  through  a  succession  of  silent 
villages  in  which  not  a  single  inhabitant  remained.  The 


286  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

currency  had  been  debased ;  the  authority  of  laws  and  magistrates 
had  been  suspended ;  the  whole  social  system  was  deranged. 
For,  during  that  convulsive  struggle,  everything  that  was  not 
military  violence  was  anarchy.  Even  the  army  was  disorgan- 
ized. Some  great  generals  and  a  crowd  of  excellent  officers 
had  fallen,  and  it  had  been  impossible  to  supply  their  place. 
The  difficulty  of  finding  recruits  had,  towards  the  close  of  the 
war,  been  so  great,  that  selection  and  rejection  were  impossi- 
ble. Whole  battalions  were  composed  of  deserters  or  of  pris- 
oners. It  was  hardly  to  be  hoped  that  thirty  years  of  repose 
and  industry  would  repair  the  ruin  produced  by  seven  years  of 
havoc.  One  consolatory  circumstance,  indeed,  there  was.  No 
debt  had  been  incurred.  The  burdens  of  the  war  had  been 
terrible,  almost  insupportable ;  but  no  arrear  was  left  to  embar- 
rass the  finances  in  time  of  peace. 


ADDISON 

To  Addison  himself  we  are  bound  by  a  sentiment  as  much 
like  affection  as  any  sentiment  can  be  which  is  inspired  by  one 
who  has  been  sleeping  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  in  West- 
minster Abbey.  We  trust,  however,  that  this  feeling  will  not 
betray  us  into  that  abject  idolatry  which  we  have  often  had 
occasion  to  reprehend  in  others,  and  which  seldom  fails  to 
make  both  the  idolater  and  the  idol  ridiculous.  A  man  of 
genius  and  virtue  is  but  a  man.  All  his  powers  cannot  be 
equally  developed ;  nor  can  we  expect  from  him  perfect  self- 
knowledge.  We  need  not,  therefore,  hesitate  to  admit  that 
Addison  has  left  us  some  compositions  which  do  not  rise 
above  mediocrity —  some  heroic  poems  hardly  equal  to  Parnell's, 
some  criticism  as  superficial  as  Dr.  Blair's,  and  a  tragedy  not 
very  much  better  than  Dr.  Johnson's.  It  is  praise  enough  to 
say  of  a  writer  that  in  a  high  department  of  literature  in 
which  many  eminent  writers  have  distinguished  themselves 
he  has  had  no  equal ;  and  this  may,  with  strict  justice,  be 
said  of  Addison. 

As  a  man,  he  may  not  have  deserved  the  adoration  which 
he  received  from  those  who,  bewitched  by  his  fascinating 
society,  and  indebted  for  all  the  comforts  of  life  to  his 
generous  and  delicate  friendship,  worshipped  him  nightly  in 
his  favourite  temple  at  Button's.  But,  after  full  inquiry  and 
impartial  reflection,  we  have  long  been  convinced  that  he 
deserved  as  much  love  and  esteem  as  can  be  justly  claimed 
by  any  of  our  infirm  and  erring  race.  Some  blemishes  may 
undoubtedly  be  detected  in  his  character ;  but  the  more  care- 
fully it  is  examined,  the  more  will  it  appear  —  to  use  the  phrase 
of  the  old  anatomists  —  sound  in  the  noble  parts,  free  from  all 
taint  of  perfidy,  of  cowardice,  of  cruelty,  of  ingratitude,  of 

287 


288  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

envy.  Men  may  easily  be  named,  in  whom  some  particular 
good  disposition  has  been  more  conspicuous  than  in  Addison. 
But  the  just  harmony  of  qualities,  the  exact  temper  between 
the  stern  and  the  humane  virtues,  the  habitual  observance  of 
every  law,  not  only  of  moral  rectitude,  but  of  moral  grace  and 
dignity,  distinguish  him  from  all  men  who  have  been  tried 
by  equally  strong  temptations,  and  about  whose  conduct  we 
possess  equally  full  information. 

His  father  was  the  Reverend  Lancelot  Addison,  who, 
though  eclipsed  by  his  more  celebrated  son,  made  some 
figure  in  the  world,  and  occupies  with  credit  two  folio  pages 
in  the  Biographia  Britannica.  Lancelot  was  sent  up,  as  a 
poor  scholar,  from  Westmoreland  to  Queen's  College,  Oxford, 
in  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  made  some  progress  in 
learning,  became,  like  most  of  his  fellow-students,  a  violent 
Royalist,  lampooned  the  heads  of  the  University,  and  was 
forced  to  ask  pardon  on  his  bended  knees.  When  he  had  left 
college,  he  earned  a  humble  subsistence  by  reading  the  liturgy 
of  the  fallen  Church  to  the  families  of  those  sturdy  squires 
whose  manor-houses  were  scattered  over  the  Wild  of  Sussex. 
After  the  Restoration,  his  loyalty  was  rewarded  with  the  post 
of  chaplain  to  the  garrison  of  Dunkirk.  When  Dunkirk  was 
sold  to  France,  he  lost  his  employment.  But  Tangier  had 
been  ceded  by  Portugal  to  England  as  part  of  the  marriage 
portion  of  the  Infanta  Catherine ;  and  to  Tangier  Lancelot 
Addison  was  sent.  A  more  miserable  situation  can  hardly  be 
conceived.  It  was  difficult  to  say  whether  the  unfortunate 
settlers  were  more  tormented  by  the  heats  or  by  the  rains, 
by  the  soldiers  within  the  wall  or  by  the  Moors  without  it. 
One  advantage  the  chaplain  had.  He  enjoyed  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  studying  the  history  and  manners  of  Jews  and 
Mahometans ;  and  of  this  opportunity  he  appears  to  have 
made  excellent  use.  On  his  return  to  England,  after  some 
years  of  banishment,  he  published  an  interesting  volume  on 
the  Polity  and  Religion  of  Barbary,  and  another  on  the 
Hebrew  Customs  and  the  State  of  Rabbinical  Learning.  He 


ADDISON  289 

rose  to  eminence  in  his  profession,  and  became  one  of  the 
royal  chaplains,  a  Doctor  of  Divinity,  Archdeacon  of  Salisbury, 
and  Dean  of  Lichfield.  It  is  said  that  he  would  have  been  made 
a  bishop  after  the  Revolution  if  he  had  not  given  offence  to 
the  Government  by  strenuously  opposing,  in  the  Convocation 
of  1689,  the  liberal  policy  of  William  and  Tillotson. 

In  1672,  not  long  after  Dr.  Addison's  return  from  Tangier, 
his  son  Joseph  was  born.  Of  Joseph's  childhood  we  know 
little.  He  learned  his  rudiments  at  school  in  his  father's 
neighbourhood,  and  was  then  sent  to  the  Charter  House. 
The  anecdotes  which  are  popularly  related  about  his  boyish 
tricks  do  not  harmonize  very  well  with  what  we  know  of  his 
riper  years.  There  remains  a  tradition  that  he  was  the  ring- 
leader in  a  barring  out,  and  another  tradition  that  he  ran 
away  from  school  and  hid  himself  in  a  wood,  where  he  fed 
on  berries  and  slept  in  a  hollow  tree  till  after  a  long  search 
he  was  discovered  and  brought  home.  If  these  stories  be 
true,  it  would  be  curious  to  know  by  what  moral  discipline  so 
mutinous  and  enterprising  a  lad  was  transformed  into  the 
gentlest  and  most  modest  of  men. 

We  have  abundant  proof  that,  whatever  Joseph's  pranks 
may  have  been,  he  pursued  his  studies  vigorously  and  success- 
fully. At  fifteen  he  was  not  only  fit  for  the  university,  but 
carried  thither  a  classical  taste  and  a  stock  of  learning  which 
would  have  done  honour  to  a  Master  of  Arts.  He  was  entered 
at  Queen's  College,  Oxford ;  but  he  had  not  been  many 
months  there,  when  some  of  his  Latin  verses  fell  by  accident 
into  the  hands  of  Dr.  Lancaster,  Dean  of  Magdalen  College. 
The  young  scholar's  diction  and  versification  were  already  such 
as  veteran  professors  might  envy.  Dr.  Lancaster  was  desirous 
to  serve  a  boy  of  such  promise ;  nor  was  an  opportunity  long 
wanting.  The  Revolution  had  just  taken  place ;  and  nowhere 
had  it  been  hailed  with  more  delight  than  at  Magdalen 
College.  That  great  and  opulent  corporation  had  been  treated 
by  James  and  by  his  Chancellor  with  an  insolence  and  injus- 
tice which,  even  in  such  a  Prince  and  in  such  a  Minister, 


290  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

may  justly  excite  amazement,  and  which  had  done  more  than 
even  the  prosecution  of  the  Bishops  to  alienate  the  Church  of 
England  from  the  throne.  A  president,  duly  elected,  had 
been  violently  expelled  from  his  dwelling ;  a  Papist  had  been 
set  over  the  society  by  a  royal  mandate ;  the  Fellows  who,  in 
conformity  with  their  oaths,  had  refused  to  submit  to  this 
usurper  had  been  driven  forth  from  their  quiet  cloisters  and 
gardens  to  die  of  want  or  to  live  on  charity.  But  the  day  of 
redress  and  retribution  speedily  came.  The  intruders  were 
ejected  ;  the  venerable  House  was  again  inhabited  by  its  old 
inmates ;  learning  flourished  under  the  rule  of  the  wise  and 
virtuous  Hough ;  and  with  learning  was  united  a  mild  and 
liberal  spirit  too  often  wanting  in  the  princely  colleges  of 
Oxford.  In  consequence  of  the  troubles  through  which  the 
society  had  passed,  there  had  been  no  valid  election  of  new 
members  during  the  year  1688.  In  1689,  therefore,  there 
was  twice  the  ordinary  number  of  vacancies ;  and  thus 
Dr.  Lancaster  found  it  easy  to  procure  for  his  young  friend 
admittance  to  the  advantages  of  a  foundation  then  generally 
esteemed  the  wealthiest  in  Europe. 

At  Magdalen  Addison  resided  during  ten  years.  He  was, 
at  first,  one  of  those  scholars  who  were  called  Demies,  but  was 
subsequently  elected  a  Fellow.  His  college  is  still  proud  of 
his  name ;  his  portrait  still  hangs  in  the  hall ;  and  strangers 
are  still  told  that  his  favourite  walk  was  under  the  elms  which 
fringe  the  meadow  on  the  banks  of  the  Cherwell.  It  is  said, 
and  is  highly  probable,  that  he  was  distinguished  among  his 
fellow-students  by  the  delicacy  of  his  feelings,  by  the  shyness 
of  his  manners,  and  by  the  assiduity  with  which  he  often  pro- 
longed his  studies  far  into  the  night.  It  is  certain  that  his  repu- 
tation for  ability  and  learning  stood  high.  Many  years  later,  the 
ancient  doctors  of  Magdalen  continued  to  talk  in  their  common 
room  of  his  boyish  compositions,  and  expressed  their  sorrow  that 
no  copy  of  exercises  so  remarkable  had  been  preserved.  .  .  . 

The  time  had  now  arrived  when  it  was  necessary  for  Addi- 
son to  choose  a  calling.  Everything  seemed  to  point  his  course 


ADDISON  291 

towards  the  clerical  profession.  His  habits  were  regular,  his 
opinions  orthodox.  His  college  had  large  ecclesiastical  prefer- 
ment in  its  gift,  and  boasts  that  it  has  given  at  least  one 
bishop  to  almost  every  see  in  England.  Dr.  Lancelot  Addison 
held  an  honourable  place  in  the  Church,  and  had  set  his  heart 
on  seeing  his  son  a  clergyman.  It  is  clear,  from  some  expres- 
sions in  the  young  man's  rhymes,  that  his  intention  was  to 
take  orders.  But  Charles  Montague  interfered.  Montague  had 
first  brought  himself  into  notice  by  verses  well-timed  and  not 
contemptibly  written,  but  never,  we  think,  rising  above  medi- 
ocrity. Fortunately  for  himself  and  for  his  country,  he  early 
quitted  poetry,  in  which  he  could  never  have  attained  a  rank 
as  high  as  that  of  Dorset  or  Rochester,  and  turned  his  mind 
to  official  and  parliamentary  business.  It  is  written  that  the 
ingenious  person  who  undertook  to  instruct  Rasselas,  prince 
of  Abyssinia,  in  the  art  of  flying,  ascended  an  eminence,  waved 
his  wings,  sprang  into  the  air,  and  instantly  dropped  into  the 
lake.  But  it  is  added  that  the  wings,  which  were  unable  to 
support  him  through  the  sky,  bore  him  up  effectually  as  soon 
as  he  was  in  the  water.  This  is  no  bad  type  of  the  fate  of 
Charles  Montague  and  of  men  like  him.  When  he  attempted 
to  soar  into  the  regions  of  poetical  invention,  he  altogether 
failed ;  but  as  soon  as  he  had  descended  from  that  ethereal 
elevation  into  a  lower  and  grosser  element,  his  talents  instantly 
raised  him  above  the  mass.  He  became  a  distinguished  finan- 
cier, debater,  courtier,  and  party  leader.  He  still  retained  his 
fondness  for  the  pursuits  of  his  early  days ;  but  he  showed 
that  fondness,  not  by  wearying  the  public  with  his  own  feeble 
performances,  but  by  discovering  and  encouraging  literary  ex- 
cellence in  others.  A  crowd  of  wits  and  poets  who  would 
easily  have  vanquished  him  as  a  competitor  revered  him  as 
a  judge  and  a  patron.  In  his  plans  for  the  encouragement 
of  learning,  he  was  cordially  supported  by  the  ablest  and 
most  virtuous  of  his  colleagues,  the  Lord  Chancellor  Somers. 
Though  both  these  great  statesmen  had  a  sincere  love  of 
letters,  it  was  not  solely  from  a  love  of  letters  that  they  were 


292  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

desirous  to  enlist  youths  of  high  intellectual  qualifications  in  the 
public  service.  The  Revolution  had  altered  the  whole  system  of 
government.  Before  that  event  the  press  had  been  controlled 
by  censors,  and  the  Parliament  had  sat  only  two  months  in 
eight  years.  Now  the  press  was  free,  and  had  begun  to  exer- 
cise unprecedented  influence  on  the  public  mind.  Parliament 
met  annually  and  sat  long.  The  chief  power  in  the  State  had 
passed  to  the  House  of  Commons.  At  such  a  conjuncture,  it 
was  natural  that  literary  and  oratorical  talents  should  rise  in 
value.  There  was  danger  that  a  government  which  neglected 
such  talents  might  be  subverted  by  them.  It  was,  therefore, 
a  profound  and  enlightened  policy  which  led  Montague  and 
Somers  to  attach  such  talents  to  the  Whig  party  by  the  strong- 
est ties  both  of  interest  and  of  gratitude. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  a  neighbouring  country  we  have 
recently  seen  similar  effects  follow  from  similar  causes.  The 
revolution  of  July,  1830,  established  representative  government 
in  France.  The  men  of  letters  instantly  rose  to  the  highest 
importance  in  the  State.  At  the  present  moment  most  of  the 
persons  whom  we  see  at  the  head  both  of  the  Administration 
and  of  the  Opposition  have  been  Professors,  Historians,  Jour- 
nalists, Poets.  The  influence  of  the  literary  class  in  England, 
during  the  generation  which  followed  the  Revolution,  was  great, 
but  by  no  means  so  great  as  it  has  lately  been  in  France.  For 
in  England  the  aristocracy  of  intellect .  had  to  contend  with  a 
powerful  and  deeply  rooted  aristocracy  of  a  very  different  kind. 
France  had  no  Somersets  and  Shrewsburys  to  keep  down  her 
Addisons  and  Priors. 

It  was  in  the  year  1699,  when  Addison  had  just  completed 
his  twenty-seventh  year,  that  the  course  of  his  life  was  finally 
determined.  Both  the  great  chiefs  of  the  Ministry  were  kindly 
disposed  towards  him.  In  political  opinions  he  already  was 
what  he  continued  to  be  through  life,  a  firm  though  a  moderate 
Whig.  He  had  addressed  the  most  polished  and  vigorous  of  his 
early  English  lines  to  Somers,  and  had  dedicated  to  Montague 
a  Latin  poem,  truly  Virgil  ian  both  in  style  and  rhythm,  on  the 


ADDISON  293 

peace  of  Ryswick.  The  wish  of  the  young  poet's  great  friends 
was,  it  should  seem,  to  employ  him  in  the  service  of  the  Crown 
abroad.  But  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  French  language  was 
a  qualification  indispensable  to  a  diplomatist,  and  this  qualifi- 
cation Addison  had  not  acquired.  It  was,  therefore,  thought 
desirable  that  he  should  pass  some  time  on  the  Continent 
in  preparing  himself  for  official  employment.  His  own  means 
were  not  such  as  would  enable  him  to  travel,  but  a  pension 
of  three  hundred  pounds  a  year  was  procured  for  him  by  the 
interest  of  the  Lord  Chancellor.  It  seems  to  have  been  appre- 
hended that  some  difficulty  might  be  started  by  the  rulers  of 
Magdalen  College.  But  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  wrote 
in  the  strongest  terms  to  Hough.  The  State  —  such  was  the 
purport  of  Montague's  letter  —  could  not  at  that  time  spare 
to  the  Church  such  a  man  as  Addison.  Too  many  high  civil 
posts  were  already  occupied  by  adventurers,  who,  destitute  of 
every  liberal  art  and  sentiment,  at  once  pillaged  and  disgraced 
the  country  which  they  pretended  to  serve.  It  had  become 
necessary  to  recruit  for  the  public  service  from  a  very  different 
class  —  from  that  class  of  which  Addison  was  the  representa- 
tive. The  close  of  the  Minister's  letter  was  remarkable.  "  I  am 
called,"  he  said,  "an  enemy  of  the  Church  ;  but  I  will  never 
do  it  any  other  injury  than  keeping  Mr.  Addison  out  of  it." 

This  interference  was  successful,  and  in  the  summer  of 
1699,  Addison,  made  a  rich  man  by  his  pension,  and  still 
retaining  his  fellowship,  quitted  his  beloved  Oxford  and  set 
out  on  his  travels.  .  .  .  He  returned  about  the  close  of  the 
year  1703  to  England.  He  was  there  cordially  received  by 
his  friends,  and  introduced  by  them  into  the  Kit  Cat  Club,  a 
society  in  which  were  collected  all  the  various  talents  and 
accomplishments  which  then  gave  lustre  to  the  Whig  party. 

Addison  was,  during  some  months  after  his  return  from 
the  Continent,  hard  pressed  by  pecuniary  difficulties.  But 
it  was  soon  in  the  power  of  his  noble  patrons  to  serve  him 
effectually.  A  political  change,  silent  and  gradual,  but  of  the 
highest  importance,  was  in  daily  progress.  The  accession  of 


294  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Anne  had  been  hailed  by  the  Tories  with  transports  of  joy 
and  hope,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  that  the  Whigs  had 
fallen  never  to  rise  again.  The  throne  was  surrounded  by 
men  supposed  to  be  attached  to  the  prerogative  and  to  the 
Church,  and  among  these  none  stood  so  high  in  the  favour 
of  the  Sovereign  as  the  Lord  Treasurer  Godolphin  and  the 
Captain-General  Marlborough. 

The  country  gentlemen  and  country  clergymen  had  fully 
expected  that  the  policy  of  these  Ministers  would  be  directly 
opposed  to  that  which  had  been  almost  constantly  followed 
by  William  ;  that  the  landed  interest  would  be  favoured  at 
the  expense  of  trade ;  that  no  addition  would  be  made  to  the 
funded  debt ;  that  the  privileges  conceded  to  Dissenters  by 
the  late  King  would  be  curtailed,  if  not  withdrawn ;  that  the 
war  with  France,  if  there  must  be  such  a  war,  would  on  our 
part  be  almost  entirely  naval ;  and  that  the  Government 
would  avoid  close  connections  with  foreign  powers,  and,  above 
all,  with  Holland. 

But  the  country  gentlemen  and  country  clergymen  were 
fated  to  be  deceived,  not  for  the  last  time.  The  prejudices 
and  passions  which  raged  without  control  in  vicarages,  in 
cathedral  closes,  and  in  the  manor-houses  of  fox-hunting 
squires,  were  not  shared  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Ministry.  Those 
statesmen  saw  that  it  was  both  for  the  public  interest  and 
for  their  own  interest  to  adopt  a  Whig  policy,  at  least  as 
respected  the  alliances  of  the  country  and  the  conduct  of  the 
war.  But  if  the  foreign  policy  of  the  Whigs  were  adopted, 
it  was  impossible  to  abstain  from  adopting  also  their  financial 
policy.  The  natural  consequences  followed.  The  rigid  Tories 
were  alienated  from  the  Government.  The  votes  of  the  Whigs 
became  necessary  to  it.  The  votes  of  the  Whigs  could  be 
secured  only  by  further  concessions,  and  further  concessions 
the  Queen  was  induced  to  make. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1704,  the  state  of  parties 
bore  a  close  analogy  to  the  state  of  parties  in  1826.  In  1826, 
as  in  1704,  there  was  a  Tory  Ministry  divided  into  two  hos- 
tile sections.  The  position  of  Mr.  Canning  and  his  friends  in 


ADDISON  295 

1826  corresponded  to  that  which  Marlborough  and  Godolphin 
occupied  in  1704.  Nottingham  and  Jersey  were,  in  1704, 
what  Lord  Eldon  and  Lord  Westmoreland  were  in  1826. 
The  Whigs  of  1704  were  in  a  situation  resembling  that  in 
which  the  Whigs  of  1826  stood.  In  1704,  Somers,  Halifax, 
Sunderland,  Cowper  were  not  in  office.  There  was  no  avowed 
coalition  between  them  and  the  moderate  Tories.  It  is  prob- 
able that  no  direct  communication  tending  to  such  a  coalition 
had  yet  taken  place ;  yet  all  men  saw  that  such  a  coalition 
was  inevitable  —  nay,  that  it  was  already  half  formed.  Such,  or 
nearly  such,  was  the  state  of  things  when  tidings  arrived  of  the 
great  battle  fought  at  Blenheim  on  the  I3th  of  August,  1704. 
By  the  Whigs  the  news  was  hailed  with  transports  of  joy  and 
pride.  No  fault,  no  cause  of  quarrel,  could  be  remembered  by 
them  against  the  Commander  whose  genius  had  in  one  day 
changed  the  face  of  Europe,  saved  the  Imperial  throne, 
humbled  the  House  of  Bourbon,  and  secured  the  Act  of 
Settlement  against  foreign  hostility.  The  feeling  of  the  Tories 
was  very  different.  They  could  not,  indeed,  without  impru- 
dence, openly  express  regret  at  an  event  so  glorious  to  their 
country ;  but  their  congratulations  were  so  cold  and  sullen  as 
to  give  deep  disgust  to  the  victorious  general  and  his  friends. 
Godolphin  was  not  a  reading  man.  Whatever  time  he 
could  spare  from  business  he  was  in  the  habit  of  spending  at 
Newmarket  or  at  the  card-table.  But  he  was  not  absolutely 
indifferent  to  poetry,  and  he  was  too  intelligent  an  observer 
not  to  perceive  that  literature  was  a  formidable  engine  of  polit- 
ical warfare,  and  that  the  great  Whig  leaders  had  strengthened 
their  party  and  raised  their  character  by  extending  a  liberal 
and  judicious  patronage  to  good  writers.  He  was  mortified, 
and  not  without  reason,  by  the  exceeding  badness  of  the 
poems  which  appeared  in  honour  of  the  battle  of  Blenheim. 
One  of  those  poems  has  been  rescued  from  oblivion  by  the 
exquisite  absurdity  of  three  lines : 

Think  of  two  thousand  gentlemen  at  least, 
And  each  man  mounted  on  his  capering  beast; 
Into  the  Danube  they  were  pushed  by  shoals. 


296  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Where  to  procure  better  verses  the  Treasurer  did  not  know. 
He  understood  how  to  negotiate  a  loan,  or  remit  a  subsidy ; 
he  was  also  well  versed  in  the  history  of  running  horses  and 
fighting  cocks  ;  but  his  acquaintance  among  the  poets  was  very 
small.  He  consulted  Halifax ;  but  Halifax  affected  to  decline 
the  office  of  adviser.  He  had,  he  said,  done  his  best,  when  he 
had  power,  to  encourage  men  whose  abilities  and  acquirements 
might  do  honour  to  their  country.  Those  times  were  over. 
Other  maxims  had  prevailed.  Merit  was  suffered  to  pine  in 
obscurity,  and  the  public  money  was  squandered  on  the  un- 
deserving. "  I  do  know,"  he  added,  "a  gentleman  who  would 
celebrate  the  battle  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  subject ;  but  I 
will  not  name  him."  Godolphin,  who  was  expert  at  the  soft 
answer  which  turns  away  wrath,  and  who  was  under  the 
necessity  of  paying  court  to  the  Whigs,  gently  replied  that 
there  was  too  much  ground  for  Halifax's  complaints,  but  that 
what  was  amiss  should  in  time  be  rectified,  and  that  in  the 
meantime  the  services  of  a  man  such  as  Halifax  had  described 
should  be  liberally  rewarded.  Halifax  then  mentioned  Addi- 
son,  but,  mindful  of  the  dignity  as  well  as  of  the  pecuniary 
interest  of  his  friend,  insisted  that  the  Minister  should  apply 
in  the  most  courteous  manner  to  Addison  himself ;  and  this 
Godolphin  promised  to  do. 

Addison  then  occupied  a  garret  up  three  pair  of  stairs 
over  a  small  shop  in  the  Haymarket.  In  this  humble  lodging 
he  was  surprised,  on  the  morning  which  followed  the  con- 
versation between  Godolphin  and  Halifax,  by  a  visit  from  no 
less  a  person  than  the  Right  Honourable  Henry  Boyle,  then 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  afterwards  Lord  Carleton. 
This  high-born  Minister  had  been  sent  by  the  Lord  Treasurer 
as  ambassador  to  the  needy  poet.  Addison  readily  undertook 
the  proposed  task  —  a  task  which  to  so  good  a  Whig  was 
probably  a  pleasure.  When  the  poem  was  little  more  than  half 
finished,  he  showed  it  to  Godolphin,  who  was  delighted  with 
it,  and  particularly  with  the  famous  similitude  of  the  Angel. 
Addison  was  instantly  appointed  to  a  Commissionership  worth 


ADDISON  297 

about  two  hundred  pounds  a  year,  and  was  assured  that  this 
appointment  was  only  an  earnest  of  greater  favours. 

The  Campaign  came  forth,  and  was  as  much  admired  by 
the  public  as  by  the  Minister.  It  pleases  us  less  on  the 
whole  than  the  Epistle  to  Halifax.  Yet  it  undoubtedly  ranks 
high  among  the  poems  which  appeared  during  the  interval 
between  the  death  of  Dryden  and  the  dawn  of  Pope's  genius. 
The  chief  merit  of  the  Campaign,  we  think,  is  that  which  was 
noticed  by  Johnson  —  the  manly  and  rational  rejection  of 
fiction.  The  first  great  poet  whose  works  have  come  down  to 
us  sang  of  war  long  before  war  became  a  science  or  a  trade. 
If  in  his  time  there  was  enmity  between  two  little  Greek 
towns,  each  poured  forth  its  crowd  of  citizens,  ignorant  of 
discipline,  and  armed  with  implements  of  labour  rudely  turned 
into  weapons.  On  each  side  appeared  conspicuous  a  few 
chiefs  whose  wealth  had  enabled  them  to  procure  good 
armour,  horses,  and  chariots,  and  whose  leisure  had  enabled 
them  to  practise  military  exercises.  One  such  chief,  if  he 
were  a  man  of  great  strength,  agility,  and  courage,  would 
probably  be  more  formidable  than  twenty  common  men ;  and 
the  force  and  dexterity  with  which  he  flung  his  spear  might 
have  no  inconsiderable  share  in  deciding  the  event  of  the 
day.  Such  were  probably  the  battles  with  which  Homer  was 
familiar.  But  Homer  related  the  actions  of  men  of  a  former 
generation  —  of  men  who  sprang  from  the  Gods,  and  com- 
muned with  the  Gods  face  to  face ;  of  men  one  of  whom 
could  with  ease  hurl  rocks  which  two  sturdy  hinds  of  a  later 
period  would  be  unable  even  to  lift.  He  therefore  naturally 
represented  their  martial  exploits  as  resembling  in  kind,  but 
far  surpassing  in  magnitude,  those  of  the  stoutest  and  most 
expert  combatants  of  his  own  age.  Achilles,  clad  in  celestial 
armour,  drawn  by  celestial  coursers,  grasping  the  spear  which 
none  but  himself  could  raise,  driving  all  Troy  and  Lycia 
before  him,  and  choking  Scamander  with  dead,  was  only  a 
magnificent  exaggeration  of  the  real  hero  who,  strong,  fear- 
less, accustomed  to  the  use  of  weapons,  guarded  by  a  shield 


298  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  helmet  of  the  best  Sidonian  fabric,  and  whirled  along  by 
horses  of  Thessalian  breed,  struck  down  with  his  own  right 
arm  foe  after  foe.  In  all  rude  societies  similar  notions  are 
found.  There  are  at  this  day  countries  where  the  Lifeguards- 
man  Shaw  would  be  considered  as  a  much  greater  warrior 
than  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  Bonaparte  loved  to  describe 
the  astonishment  with  which  the  Mamelukes  looked  at  his 
diminutive  figure.  Mourad  Bey,  distinguished  above  all  his 
fellows  by  his  bodily  strength  and  by  the  skill  with  which 
he  managed  his  horse  and  his  sabre,  could  not  believe  that  a 
man  who  was  scarcely  five  feet  high,  and  rode  like  a  butcher, 
could  be  the  greatest  soldier  in  Europe. 

Homer's  descriptions  of  war  had  therefore  as  much  truth  as 
poetry  requires.  But  truth  was  altogether  wanting  to  the  per- 
formances of  those  who,  writing  about  battles  which  had 
scarcely  anything  in  common  with  the  battles  of  his  times, 
servilely  imitated  his  manner.  The  folly  of  Silius  Italicus,  in 
particular,  is  positively  nauseous.  He  undertook  to  record  in 
verse  the  vicissitudes  of  a  great  struggle  between  generals  of 
the  first  order ;  and  his  narrative  is  made  up  of  the  hideous 
wounds  which  these  generals  inflicted  with  their  own  hands. 
Hasdrubal  flings  a  spear  which  grazes  the  shoulder  of  the  consul 
Nero  ;  but  Nero  sends  his  spear  into  Hasdrubal's  side.  Fabius 
slays  Thuris  and  Butes  and  Maris  and  Arses,  and  the  long- 
haired Adherbes  and  the  gigantic  Thylis,  and  Sapharus  and 
Monsesus,  and  the  trumpeter  Morinus.  Hannibal  runs  Peru- 
sinus  through  the  groin  with  a  stake,  and  breaks  the  backbone 
of  Telesinus  with  a  huge  stone.  This  detestable  fashion  was 
copied  in  modern  times,  and  continued  to  prevail  down  to  the 
age  of  Addison.  Several  versifiers  had  described  William  turn- 
ing thousands  to  flight  by  his  single  prowess,  and  dyeing  the 
Boyne  with  Irish  blood.  Nay,  so  estimable  a  writer  as  John 
Philips,  the  author  of  the  Splendid  Shilling,  represented  Marl- 
borough  as  having  won  the  battle  of  Blenheim  merely  by 
strength  of  muscle  and  skill  in  fence.  The  following  lines 
may  serve  as  an  example  : 


ADDISON  299 

Churchill,  viewing  where 
The  violence  of  Tallard  most  prevailed, 
Came  to  oppose  his  slaughtering  arm.    With  speed 
Precipitate  he  rode,  urging  his  way 
O'er  hills  of  gasping  heroes,  and  fallen  steeds 
Rolling  in  death.    Destruction,  grim  with  blood, 
Attends  his  furious  course.    Around  his  head 
The  glowing  balls  play  innocent,  while  he 
With  dire  impetuous  sway  deals  fatal  blows 
Among  the  flying  Gauls.    In  Gallic  blood 
He  dyes  his  reeking  sword,  and  strews  the  ground 
With  headless  ranks.    What  can  they  do  ?    Or  how 
Withstand  his  wide-destroying  sword  ? 

Addison,  with  excellent  sense  and  taste,  departed  from  this 
ridiculous  fashion.  He  reserved  his  praise  for  the  qualities 
which  made  Marlborough  truly  great  —  energy,  sagacity,  military 
science ;  but,  above  all,  the  poet  extolled  the  firmness  of  that 
mind  which,  in  the  midst  of  confusion,  uproar,  and  slaughter, 
examined  and  disposed  everything  with  the  serene  wisdom  of 
a  higher  intelligence. 

Here  it  was  that  he  introduced  the  famous  comparison  of 
Marlborough  to  an  angel  guiding  the  whirlwind.  We  will  not 
dispute  the  general  justice  of  Johnson's  remarks  on  this  passage. 
But  we  must  point  out  one  circumstance  which  appears  to  have 
escaped  all  the  critics.  The  extraordinary  effect  which  this 
simile  produced  when  it  first  appeared,  and  which  to  the  follow- 
ing generation  seemed  inexplicable,  is  doubtless  to  be  chiefly 
attributed  to  a  line  which  most  readers  now  regard  as  a  feeble 

parenthesis  — 

Such  as,  of  late,  o'er  pale  Britannia  pass'd. 

Addison  spoke,  not  of  a  storm,  but  of  the  storm.  The  great 
tempest  of  November,  1703 — the  only  tempest  which  in  our 
latitude  has  equalled  the  rage  of  a  tropical  hurricane  —  had  left 
a  dreadful  recollection  in  the  minds  of  all  men.  No  other 
tempest  was  ever  in  this  country  the  occasion  of  a  parliamen- 
tary address  or  of  a  public  fast.  Whole  fleets  had  been  cast 
away.  Large  mansions  had  been'  blown  down.  One  Prelate 


300  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

had  been  buried  beneath  the  ruins  of  his  palace.  London  and 
Bristol  had  presented  the  appearance  of  cities  just  sacked. 
Hundreds  of  families  were  still  in  mourning.  The  prostrate 
trunks  of  large  trees  and  the  ruins  of  houses  still  attested,  in 
all  the  southern  counties,  the  fury  of  the  blast.  The  popularity 
which  the  simile  of  the  angel  enjoyed  among  Addison's  con- 
temporaries has  always  seemed  to  us  to  be  a  remarkable  in- 
stance of  the  advantage  which,  in  rhetoric  and  poetry,  the 
particular  has  over  the  general. 

Soon  after  the  Campaign,  was  published  Addison's  Narra- 
tive of  his  Travels  in  Italy.  The  first  effect  produced  by  this 
Narrative  was  disappointment.  The  crowd  of  readers  who  ex- 
pected politics  and  scandal,  speculations  on  the  projects  of 
Victor  Amadeus,  and  anecdotes  about  the  jollities  of  convents 
and  the  amours  of  cardinals  and  nuns,  were  confounded  by 
finding  that  the  writer's  mind  was  much  more  occupied  by  the 
war  between  the  Trojans  and  Rutulians  than  by  the  war  be- 
tween France  and  Austria ;  and  that  he  seemed  to  have  heard 
no  scandal  of  later  date  than  the  gallantries  of  the  Empress 
Faustina.  In  time,  however,  the  judgment  of  the  many  was 
overruled  by  that  of  the  few ;  and  before  the  book  was  re- 
printed it  was  so  eagerly  sought  that  it  sold  for  five  times  the 
original  price.  It  is  still  read  with  pleasure  ;  the  style  is  pure 
and  flowing ;  the  classical  quotations  and  allusions  are  numer- 
ous and  happy ;  and  we  are  now  and  then  charmed  by  that 
singularly  humane  and  delicate  humour  in  which  Addison 
excelled  all  men.  Yet  this  agreeable  work,  even  when  con- 
sidered merely  as  the  history  of  a  literary  tour,  may  justly  be 
censured  on  account  of  its  faults  of  omission.  We  have 
already  said  that,  though  rich  in  extracts  from  the  Latin  poets, 
it  contains  scarcely  any  references  to  the  Latin  orators  and 
historians.  We  must  add  that  it  contains  little  or  rather  no 
information  respecting  the  history  and  literature  of  modern 
Italy.  To  the  best  of  our  remembrance,  Addison  does  not 
mention  Dante,  Petrarch,  Boccaccio,  Boiardo,  Berni,  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici,  or  Machiavelli.  He  coldly  tells  us  that  at  Ferrara 
he  saw  the  tomb  of  Ariosto,  and  that  at  Venice  he  heard  the 


ADDISON  301 

gondoliers  sing  verses  of  Tasso.  But  for  Tasso  and  Ariosto 
he  cared  far  less  than  for  Valerius  Flaccus  and  Sidonius 
Apollinaris.  The  gentle  flow  of  the  Ticin  brings  a  line  of 
Silius  to  his  mind.  The  sulphurous  stream  of  Albula  suggests 
to  him  several  passages  of  Martial.  But  he  has  not  a  word 
to  say  of  the  illustrious  dead  of  Santa  Croce ;  he  crosses  the 
wood  of  Ravenna  without  recollecting  the  Spectre  Huntsman, 
and  wanders  up  and  down  Rimini  without  one  thought  of 
Francesca.  At  Paris  he  had  eagerly  sought  an  introduction 
to  Boileau ;  but  he  seems  not  to  have  been  at  all  aware  that 
at  Florence  he  was  in  the  vicinity  of  a  poet  with  whom  Boileau 
could  not  sustain  a  comparison,  of  the  greatest  lyric  poet  of 
modern  times,  Vincenzo  Filicaja.  This  is  the  more  remark- 
able because  Filicaja  was  the  favourite  poet  of  the  accomplished 
Somers,  under  whose  protection  Addison  travelled,  and  to  whom 
the  account  of  the  Travels  is  dedicated.  The  truth  is,  that 
Addison  knew  little,  and  cared  less,  about  the  literature  of 
modern  Italy.  His  favourite  models  were  Latin.  His  favourite 
critics  were  French.  Half  the  Tuscan  poetry  that  he  had  read 
seemed  to  him  monstrous,  and  the  other  half  tawdry. 

His  Travels  were  followed  by  the  lively  opera  of  Rosamond. 
This  piece  was  ill  set  to  music,  and  therefore  failed  on  the 
stage ;  but  it  completely  succeeded  in  print,  and  is  indeed  ex- 
cellent in  its  kind.  The  smoothness  with  which  the  verses 
glide,  and  the  elasticity  with  which  they  bound,  are,  to  our  ears 
at  least,  very  pleasing.  We  are  inclined  to  think  that  if  Addi- 
son had  left  heroic  couplets  to  Pope,  and  blank  verse  to  Rowe, 
and  had  employed  himself  in  writing  airy  and  spirited  songs, 
his  reputation  as  a  poet  would  have  stood  far  higher  than  it 
now  does. '  Some  years  after  his  death,  Rosamond  was  set  to 
new  music  by  Doctor  Arne,  and  was  performed  with  complete 
success.  Several  passages  long  retained  their  popularity,  and 
were  daily  sung  during  the  latter  part  of  George  the  Second's 
reign  at  all  the  harpsichords  in  England. 

While  Addison  thus  amused  himself,  his  prospects,  and  the 
prospects  of  his  party,  were  constantly  becoming  brighter  and 
brighter.  In  the  spring  of  1705,  the  Ministers  were  freed  from 


302  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  restraint  imposed  by  a  House  of  Commons  in  which  Tories 
of  the  most  perverse  class  had  the  ascendency.  The  elections 
were  favourable  to  the  Whigs.  The  coalition  which  had  been 
tacitly  and  gradually  formed  was  now  openly  avowed.  The  Great 
Seal  was  given  to  Cowper.  Somers  and  Halifax  were  sworn  of 
the  Council.  Halifax  was  sent  in  the  following  year  to  carry 
the  decorations  of  the  Order  of  the  Garter  to  the  Electoral 
Prince  of  Hanover,  and  was  accompanied  on  this  honourable 
mission  by  Addison,  who  had  just  been  made  Under-Secretary 
of  State.  The  Secretary  of  State  under  whom  Addison  first 
served  was  Sir  Charles  Hedges,  a  Tory.  But  Hedges  was  soon 
dismissed  to  make  room  for  the  most  vehement  of  Whigs, 
Charles,  Earl  of  Sunderland.  In  every  department  of  the  State, 
indeed,  the  High  Churchmen  were  compelled  to  give  place  to 
their  opponents.  At  the  close  of  1707,  the  Tories  who  still 
remained  in  office  strove  to  rally,  with  Harley  at  their  head. 
But  the  attempt,  though  favoured  by  the  Queen,  who  had  al- 
ways been  a  Tory  at  heart,  and  who  had  now  quarrelled  with 
the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  was  unsuccessful.  The  time  was 
not  yet.  The  Captain-General  was  at  the  height  of  popularity 
and  glory.  The  Low  Church  party  had  a  majority  in  Parlia- 
ment. The  country  squires  and  rectors,  though  occasionally 
uttering  a  savage  growl,  were  for  the  most  part  in  a  state  of 
torpor,  which  lasted  till  they  were  roused  into  activity,  and  in- 
deed into  madness,  by  the  prosecution  of  Sacheverell.  Harley 
and  his  adherents  were  compelled  to  retire.  The  victory  of  the 
Whigs  was  complete.  At  the  general  election  of  1708,  their 
strength  in  the  House  of  Commons  became  irresistible ;  and 
before  the  end  of  that  year  Somers  was  made  Lord  President 
of  the  Council,  and  Wharton  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 

Addison  sat  for  Malmesbury  in  the  House  of  Commons  which 
was  elected  in  1708.  But  the  House  of  Commons  was  not  the 
field  for  him.  The  bashfulness  of  his  nature  made  his  wit  and 
eloquence  useless  in  debate.  He  once  rose,  but  could  not  over- 
come his  diffidence,  and  ever  after  remained  silent.  Nobody 
can  think  it  strange  that  a  great  writer  should  fail  as  a  speaker. 


ADDISON  303 

But  many,  probably,  will  think  it  strange  that  Addison's  failure 
as  a  speaker  should  have  had  no  unfavourable  effect  on  his 
success  as  a  politician.  In  our  time,  a  man  of  high  rank  and 
great  fortune  might,  though  speaking  very  little  and  very  ill, 
hold  a  considerable  post.  But  it  would  now  be  inconceivable 
that  a  mere  adventurer  —  a  man  who,  when  out  of  office,  must 
live  by  his  pen  —  should  in  a  few  years  become  successively 
Under-Secretary  of  State,  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  and  Sec- 
retary of  State  without  some  oratorical  talent.  Addison,  with- 
out high  birth,  and  with  little  property,  rose  to  a  post  which 
Dukes  —  the  heads  of  the  great  Houses  of  Talbot,  Russell,  and 
Bentinck  —  have  thought  it  an  honour  to  fill.  Without  opening 
his  lips  in  debate,  he  rose  to  a  post  the  highest  that  Chatham 
or  Fox  ever  reached.  And  this  he  did  before  he  had  been 
nine  years  in  Parliament.  We  must  look  for  the  explanation 
of  this  seeming  miracle  to  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  which 
that  generation  was  placed.  During  the  interval  which  elapsed 
between  the  time  when  the  Censorship  of  the  Press  ceased 
and  the  time  when  parliamentary  proceedings  began  to  be 
freely  reported,  literary  talents  were,  to  a  public  man,  of  much 
more  importance,  and  oratorical  talents  of  much  less  impor- 
tance, than  in  our  time.  At  present  the  best  way  of  giving 
rapid  and  wide  publicity  to  a  fact  or  an  argument  is  to  intro- 
duce that  fact  or  argument  into  a  speech  made  in  Parliament. 
If  a  political  tract  were  to  appear  superior  to  the  Conduct  of 
the  Allies  or  to  the  best  numbers  of  the  Freeholder,  the  cir- 
culation of  such  a  tract  would  be  languid  indeed  when  com- 
pared with  the  circulation  of  every  remarkable  word  uttered  in 
the  deliberations  of  the  Legislature.  A  speech  made  in  the 
House  of  Commons  at  four  in  the  morning  is  on  thirty  thou- 
sand tables  before  ten.  A  speech  made  on  the  Monday  is  read 
on  the  Wednesday  by  multitudes  in  Antrim  and  Aberdeen- 
shire.  The  orator,  by  the  help  of  the  shorthand  writer,  has  to 
a  great  extent  superseded  the  pamphleteer.  It  was  not  so  in 
the  reign  of  Anne.  The  best  speech  could  then  produce  no 
effect  except  on  those  who  heard  it.  It  was  only  by  means  of 


304  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  press  that  the  opinion  of  the  public  without-doors  could  be 
influenced ;  and  the  opinion  of  the  public  without-doors  could 
not  but  be  of  the  highest  importance  in  a  country  governed 
by  parliaments,  and  indeed  at  that  time  governed  by  triennial 
parliaments.  The  pen  was  therefore  a  more  formidable  politi- 
cal engine  than  the  tongue.  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr.  Fox  contended 
only  in  Parliament.  But  Walpole  and  Pulteney  —  the  Pitt  and 
Fox  of  an  earlier  period  —  had  not  done  half  of  what  was  neces- 
sary when  they  sat  down  amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  They  had  still  to  plead  their  cause  before  the 
country,  and  this  they  could  do  only  by  means  of  the  press. 
Their  works  are  now  forgotten.  But  it  is  certain  that  there 
were  in  Grub  Street  few  more  assiduous  scribblers  of  Thoughts, 
Letters,  Answers,  Remarks,  than  these  two  great  chiefs  of  par- 
ties. Pulteney,  when  leader  of  the  Opposition  and  possessed  of 
thirty  thousand  a  year,  edited  the  Craftsman.  Walpole,  though 
not  a  man  of  literary  habits,  was  the  author  of  at  least  ten 
pamphlets,  and  retouched  and  corrected  many  more.  These 
facts  sufficiently  show  of  how  great  importance  literary  assist- 
ance then  was  to  the  contending  parties.  St.  John  was  cer- 
tainly, in  Anne's  reign,  the  best  Tory  speaker ;  Cowper  was 
probably  the  best  Whig  speaker.  But  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  St.  John  did  so  much  for  the  Tories  as  Swift,  and 
whether  Cowper  did  so  much  for  the  Whigs  as  Addison. 
When  these  things  are  duly  considered,  it  will  not  be  thought 
strange  that  Addison  should  have  climbed  higher  in  the  State 
than  any  other  Englishman  has  ever,  by  means  merely  of  lit- 
erary talents,  been  able  to  climb.  Swift  would,  in  all  proba- 
bility, have  climbed  as  high  if  he  had  not  been  encumbered 
by  his  cassock  and  his  pudding  sleeves.  As  far  as  the  hom- 
age of  the  great  went,  Swift  had  as  much  of  it  as  if  he  had 
been  Lord  Treasurer. 

To  the  influence  which  Addison  derived  from  his  literary 
talents  was  added  all  the  influence  which  arises  from  character. 
The  world,  always  ready  to  think  the  worst  of  needy  political 
adventurers,  was  forced  to  make  one  exception.  Restlessness, 


ADDISON  305 

violence,  audacity,  laxity  of  principle,  are  the  vices  ordinarily 
attributed  to  that  class  of  men.  But  faction  itself  could  not 
deny  that  Addison  had,  through  all  changes  of  fortune,  been 
strictly  faithful  to  his  early  opinions  and  to  his  early  friends ; 
that  his  integrity  was  without  stain ;  that  his  whole  deportment 
indicated  a  fine  sense  of  the  becoming ;  that  in  the  utmost 
heat  of  controversy  his  zeal  was  tempered  by  a  regard  for 
truth,  humanity,  and  social  decorum ;  that  no  outrage  could 
ever  provoke  him  to  retaliation  unworthy  of  a  Christian  and 
a  gentleman ;  and  that  his  only  faults  were  a  too  sensitive 
delicacy,  and  a  modesty  which  amounted  to  bashfulness. 

He  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  popular  men  of  his 
time ;  and  much  of  his  popularity  he  owed,  we  believe,  to  that 
very  timidity  which  his  friends  lamented.  That  timidity  often 
prevented  him  from  exhibiting  his  talents  to  the  best  advan- 
tage. But  it  propitiated  Nemesis.  It  averted  that  envy  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  excited  by  fame  so  splendid  and  by 
so  rapid  an  elevation.  No  man  is  so  great  a  favourite  with  the 
public  as  he  who  is  at  once  an  object  of  admiration,  of  respect, 
and  of  pity ;  and  such  were  the  feelings  which  Addison  in- 
spired. Those  who  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  hearing  his  familiar 
conversation  declared  with  one  voice  that  it  was  superior  even 
to  his  writings.  The  brilliant  Mary  Montague  said  that  she 
had  known  all  the  wits,  and  that  Addison  was  the  best  com- 
pany in  the  world.  The  malignant  Pope  was  forced  to  own 
that  there  was  a  charm  in  Addison's  talk  which  could  be  found 
nowhere  else.  Swift,  when  burning  with  animosity  against  the 
Whigs,  could  not  but  confess  to  Stella  that,  after  all,  he  had 
never  known  any  associate  so  agreeable  as  Addison.  Steele, 
an  excellent  judge  of  lively  conversation,  said  that  the  con- 
versation of  Addison  was  at  once  the  most  polite  and  the 
most  mirthful  that  could  be  imagined  ;  that  it  was  Terence 
and  Catullus  in  one,  heightened  by  an  exquisite  something 
which  was  neither  Terence  nor  Catullus,  but  Addison  alone. 
Young,  an  excellent  judge  of  serious  conversation,  said  that 
when  Addison  was  at  his  ease  he  went  on  in  a  noble  strain  of 


306  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

thought  and  language,  so  as  to  chain  the  attention  of  every 
hearer.  Nor  were  Addison's  great  colloquial  powers  more 
admirable  than  the  courtesy  and  softness  of  heart  which  ap- 
peared in  his  conversation.  At  the  same  time,  it  would  be  too 
much  to  say  that  he  was  wholly  devoid  of  the  malice  which  is, 
perhaps,  inseparable  from  a  keen  sense  of  the  ludicrous.  He 
had  one  habit  which  both  Swift  and  Stella  applauded,  and 
which  we  hardly  know  how  to  blame.  If  his  first  attempts  to 
set  a  presuming  dunce  right  were  ill  received,  he  changed  his 
tone,  "assented  with  civil  leer,"  and  lured  the  flattered  cox- 
comb deeper  and  deeper  into  absurdity.  That  such  was  his 
practice,  we  should,  we  think,  have  guessed  from  his  works. 
The  Tatlers  criticisms  on  Mr.  Softly's  sonnet  and  the  Spec- 
tator s  dialogue  with  the  politician  who  is  so  zealous  for  the 
honour  of  Lady  Q — p — t — s,  are  excellent  specimens  of  this 
innocent  mischief. 

Such  were  Addison's  talents  for  conversation.  But  his  rare 
gifts  were  not  exhibited  to  crowds  or  to  strangers.  As  soon  as 
he  entered  a  large  company,  as  soon  as  he  saw  an  unknown 
face,  his  lips  were  sealed  and  his  manners  became  constrained. 
None  who  met  him  only  in  great  assemblies  would  have  been 
able  to  believe  that  he  was  the  same  man  who  had  often  kept 
a  few  friends  listening  and  laughing  round  a  table  from  the 
time  when  the  play  ended  till  the  clock  of  St.  Paul's  in 
Covent  Garden  struck  four.  Yet  even  at  such  a  table  he  was 
not  seen  to  the  best  advantage.  To  enjoy  his  conversation  in 
the  highest  perfection,  it  was  necessary  to  be  alone  with  him, 
and  to  hear  him,  in  his  own  phrase,  think  aloud.  "  There  is 
no  such  thing,"  he  used  to  say,  "  as  real  conversation  but 
between  two  persons." 

This  timidity  —  a  timidity  surely  neither  'ungraceful  nor  un- 
amiable  —  led  Addison  into  the  two  most  serious  faults  which 
can  with  justice  be  imputed  to  him.  He  found  that  wine  broke 
the  spell  which  lay  on  his  fine  intellect,  and  was  therefore  too 
easily  seduced  into  convivial  excess.  Such  excess  was  in  that 
age  regarded,  even  by  grave  men,  as  the  most  venial  of  all 


ADDISON  307 

peccadilloes,  and  was  so  far  from  being  a  mark  of  ill-breeding 
that  it  was  almost  essential  to  the  character  of  a  fine  gentle- 
man. But  the  smallest  speck  is  seen  on  a  white  ground;  and 
almost  all  the  biographers  of  Addison  have  said  something 
about  this  failing.  Of  any  other  statesman  or  writer  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign,  we  should  no  more  think  of  saying  that  he  some- 
times took  too  much  wine  than  that  he  wore  a  long  wig  and 
a  sword. 

To  the  excessive  modesty  of  Addison 's  nature  we  must 
ascribe  another  fault  which  generally  arises  from  a  very  dif- 
ferent cause.  He  became  a  little  too  fond  of  seeing  himself 
surrounded  by  a  small  circle  of  admirers,  to  whom  he  was  as 
a  King,  or  rather  as  a  God.  All  these  men  were  far  inferior 
to  him  in  ability,  and  some  of  them  had  very  serious  faults. 
Nor  did  those  faults  escape  his  observation  ;  for  if  ever  there 
was  an  eye  which  saw  through  and  through  men,  it  was  the 
eye  of  Addison.  But,  with  the  keenest  observation,  and  the 
finest  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  he  had  a  large  charity.  The 
feeling  with  which  he  looked  on  most  of  his  humble  com- 
panions was  one  of  benevolence,  slightly  tinctured  with  con- 
tempt. He  was  at  perfect  ease  in  their  company ;  he  was 
grateful  for  their  devoted  attachment ;  and  he  loaded  them  with 
benefits.  Their  veneration  for  him  appears  to  have  exceeded 
that  with  which  Johnson  was  regarded  by  Boswell,  or  Warbur- 
ton  by  Hurd.  It  was  not  in  the  power  of  adulation  to  turn 
such  a  head  or  deprave  such  a  heart  as  Addison 's.  But  it 
must  in  candour  be  admitted  that  he  contracted  some  of  the 
faults  which  can  scarcely  be  avoided  by  any  person  who  is  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  the  oracle  of  a  small  literary  coterie. 

One  member  of  this  little  society  was  Eustace  Budgell,  a  young 
Templar  of  some  literature,  and  a  distant  relation  of  Addison. 
There  was  at  this  time  no  stain  on  the  character  of  Budgell, 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  his  career  would  have  been  pros- 
perous and  honourable  if  the  life  of  his  cousin  had  been  pro- 
longed. But  when  the  master  was  laid  in  the  grave,  the 
disciple  broke  loose  from  all  restraint,  descended  rapidly  from 


308  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

one  degree  of  vice  and  misery  to  another,  ruined  his  fortune 
by  follies,  attempted  to  repair  it  by  crimes,  and  at  length 
closed  a  wicked  and  unhappy  life  by  self-murder.  Yet  to  the 
last,  the  wretched  man  —  gambler,  lampooner,  cheat,  forger,  as 
he  was  —  retained  his  affection  and  veneration  for  Addison,  and 
recorded  those  feelings  in  the  last  lines  which  he  traced  before 
he  hid  himself  from  infamy  under  London  Bridge. 

Another  of  Addison's  favourite  companions  was  Ambrose 
Philips,  a  good  Whig  and  a  middling  poet,  who  had  the 
honour  of  bringing  into  fashion  a  species  of  composition  which 
has  been  called,  after  his  name,  Namby  Pamby.  But  the  most 
remarkable  members  of  the  little  senate,  as  Pope  long  after- 
wards called  it,  were  Richard  Steele  and  Thomas  Tickell. 

Steele  had  known  Addison  from  childhood.  They  had  been 
together  at  the  Charter  House  and  at  Oxford  ;  but  circumstances 
had  then,  for  a  time,  separated  them  widely.  Steele  had  left 
college  without  taking  a  degree,  had  been  disinherited  by  a  rich 
relation,  had  led  a  vagrant  life,  had  served  in  the  army,  had 
tried  to  find  the  philosopher's  stone,  and  had  written  a  religious 
treatise  and  several  comedies.  He  was  one  of  those  people 
whom  it  is  impossible  either  to  hate  or  to  respect.  His  temper 
was  sweet,  his  affections  warm,  his  spirits  lively,  his  passions 
strong,  and  his  principles  weak.  His  life  was  spent  in  sinning 
and  repenting,  in  inculcating  what  was  right  and  doing  what 
was  wrong.  In  speculation  he  was  a  man  of  piety  and  honour; 
in  practice  he  was  much  of  the  rake  and  a  little  of  the  swindler. 
He  was,  however,  so  good-natured  that  it  was  not  easy  to  be 
seriously  angry  with  him,  and  that  even  rigid  moralists  felt  more 
inclined  to  pity  than  to  blame  him  when  he  diced  himself  into 
a  spunging-house  or  drank  himself  into  a  fever.  Addison 
regarded  Steele  with  kindness  not  unmingled  with  scorn,  tried, 
with  little  success,  to  keep  him  out  of  scrapes,  introduced  him 
to  the  great,  procured  a  good  place  for  him,  corrected  his  plays, 
and,  though  by  no  means  rich,  lent  him  large  sums  of  money. 
One  of  these  loans  appears,  from  a  letter  dated  in  August, 
1708,  to  have  amounted  to  a  thousand  pounds.  These  pecuniary 


ADDISON  309 

transactions  probably  led  to  frequent  bickerings.  It  is  said  that 
on  one  occasion  Steele's  negligence,  or  dishonesty,  provoked 
Addison  to  repay  himself  by  the  help  of  a  bailiff.  We  cannot 
join  with  Miss  Aikin  in  rejecting  this  story.  Johnson  heard  it 
from  Savage,  who  had  heard  it  from  Steele.  Few  private  trans- 
actions which  took  place  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago  are 
proved  by  stronger  evidence  than  this.  But  we  can  by  no  means 
agree  with  those  who  condemn  Addison's  severity.  The  most 
amiable  of  mankind  may  well  be  moved  to  indignation  when 
what  he  has  earned  hardly  and  lent  with  great  inconvenience 
to  himself,  for  the  purpose  of  relieving  a  friend  in  distress,  is 
squandered  with  insane  profusion.  We  will  illustrate  our  mean- 
ing by  an  example,  which  is  not  the  less  striking  because  it  is 
taken  from  fiction.  Dr.  Harrison,  in  Fielding's  Amelia,  is 
represented  as  the  most  benevolent  of  human  beings ;  yet  he 
takes  in  execution,  not  only  the  goods,  but  the  person,  of  his 
friend  Booth.  Dr.  Harrison  resorts  to  this  strong  measure 
because  he  has  been  informed  that  Booth,  while  pleading 
poverty  as  an  excuse  for  not  paying  just  debts,  has  been 
buying  fine  jewellery,  and  setting  up  a  coach.  No  person  who 
is  well  acquainted  with  Steele's  life  and  correspondence  can 
doubt  that  he  behaved  quite  as  ill  to  Addison  as  Booth  was 
accused  of  behaving  to  Dr.  Harrison.  The  real  history,  we 
have  little  doubt,  was  something  like  this :  A  letter  comes 
to  Addison  imploring  help  in  pathetic  terms,  and  promising 
reformation  and  speedy  repayment.  Poor  Dick  declares  that 
he  has  not  an  inch  of  candle  or  a  bushel  of  coals,  or  credit 
with  the  butcher  for  a  shoulder  of  mutton.  Addison  is  moved. 
He  determines  to  deny  himself  some  medals  which  are  want- 
ing to  his  series  of  the  twelve  Caesars,  to  put  off  buying  the 
new  edition  of  Bayle's  Dictionary,  and  to  wear  his  old  sword 
and  buckles  another  year.  In  this  way  he  manages  to  send  a 
hundred  pounds  to  his  friend.  The  next  day  he  calls  on 
Steele,  and  finds  scores  of  gentlemen  and  ladies  assembled. 
The  fiddles  are  playing.  The  table  is  groaning  under  cham- 
pagne, Burgundy,  and  pyramids  of  sweetmeats.  Is  it  strange 


310  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

that  a  man  whose  kindness  is  thus  abused  should  send  sheriff's 
officers  to  reclaim  what  is  due  to  him  ? 

Tickell  was  a  young  man,  fresh  from  Oxford,  who  had 
introduced  himself  to  public  notice  by  writing  a  most  ingenious 
and  graceful  little  poem  in  praise  of  the  opera  of  Rosamond. 
He  deserved,  and  at  length  attained,  the  first  place  in  Addison's 
friendship.  For  a  time  Steele  and  Tickell  were  on  good  terms. 
But  they  loved  Addison  too  much  to  love  each  other,  and  at 
length  became  as  bitter  enemies  as  the  rival  bulls  in  Virgil. 

At  the  close  of  1708  Wharton  became  Lord- Lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  and  appointed  Addison  Chief  Secretary.  Addison 
was  consequently  under  the  necessity  of  quitting  London  for 
Dublin.  Besides  the  chief  secretaryship,  which  was  then  worth 
about  two  thousand  pounds  a  year,  he  obtained  a  patent  appoint- 
ing him  Keeper  of  the  Irish  Records  for  life,  with  a  salary  of 
three  or  four  hundred  a  year.  Budgell  accompanied  his  cousin 
in  the  capacity  of  private  secretary. 

Wharton  and  Addison  had  nothing  in  common  but  Whiggism. 
The  Lord-Lieutenant  was  not  only  licentious  and  corrupt,  but 
was  distinguished  from  other  libertines  and  jobbers  by  a  callous 
impudence  which  presented  the  strongest  contrast  to  the  Secre- 
tary's gentleness  and  delicacy.  Many  parts  of  the  Irish  adminis- 
tration at  this  time  appear  to  have  deserved  serious  blame.  But 
against  Addison  there  was  not  a  murmur.  He  long  afterwards 
asserted,  what  all  the  evidence  which  we  have  ever  seen  tends 
to  prove,  that  his  diligence  and  integrity  gained  the  friendship 
of  all  the  most  considerable  persons  in  Ireland. 

The  parliamentary  career  of  Addison  in  Ireland  has,  we  think, 
wholly  escaped  the  notice  of  all  his  biographers.  He  was  elected 
member  for  the  borough  of  Cavan  in  the  summer  of  1 709  ;  and 
in  the  journals  of  two  sessions  his  name  frequently  occurs.  Some 
of  the  entries  appear  to  indicate  that  he  so  far  overcame  his 
timidity  as  to  make  speeches.  Nor  is  this  by  any  means  im- 
probable; for  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  was  a  far  less 
formidable  audience  than  the  English  House ;  and  many 
tongues  which  were  tied  by  fear  in  the  greater  assembly 


ADDISON  311 

became  fluent  in  the  smaller.  Gerard  Hamilton,  for  example, 
who,  from  fear  of  losing  the  fame  gained  by  his  single  speech, 
sat  mute  at  Westminster  during  forty  years,  spoke  with  great 
effect  at  Dublin  when  he  was  Secretary  to  Lord  Halifax. 

While  Addison  was  in  Ireland,  an  event  occurred  to  which 
he  owes  his  high  and  permanent  rank  among  British  writers. 
As  yet  his  fame  rested  on  performances  which,  though  highly 
respectable,  were  not  built  for  duration,  and  which  would,  if  he 
had  produced  nothing  else,  have  now  been  almost  forgotten  — 
on  some  excellent  Latin  verses,  on  some  English  verses  which 
occasionally  rose  above  mediocrity,  and  on  a  book  of  travels, 
agreeably  written,  but  not  indicating  any  extraordinary  powers 
of  mind.  These  works  showed  him  to  be  a  man  of  taste,  sense, 
and  learning.  The  time  had  come  when  he  was  to  prove  himself 
a  man  of  genius,  and  to  enrich  our  literature  with  compositions 
which  will  live  as  long  as  the  English  language. 

In  the  spring  of  1709  Steele  formed  a  literary  project,  of 
which  he  was  far  indeed  from  foreseeing  the  consequences. 
Periodical  papers  had  during  many  years  been  published  in 
London.  Most  of  these  were  political ;  but  in  some  of  them 
questions  of  morality,  taste,  and  love  casuistry  had  been  dis- 
cussed. The  literary  merit  of  these  works  was  small  indeed ; 
and  even  their  names  are  now  known  only  to  the  curious. 

Steele  had  been  appointed  Gazetteer  by  Sunderland,  at  the 
request,  it  is  said,  of  Addison,  and  thus  had  access  to  foreign 
intelligence  earlier  and  more  authentic  than  was  in  those  times 
within  the  reach  of  an  ordinary  news-writer.  This  circumstance 
seems  to  have  suggested  to  him  the  scheme  of  publishing  a 
periodical  paper  on  a  new  plan.  It  was  to  appear  on  the  days 
on  which  the  post  left  London  for  the  country,  which  were,  in 
that  generation,  the  Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  and  Saturdays.  It 
was  to  contain  the  foreign  news,  accounts  of  theatrical  repre- 
sentations, and  the  literary  gossip  of  Will's  and  of  the  Grecian. 
It  was  also  to  contain  remarks  on  the  fashionable  topics  of  the 
day,  compliments  to  beauties,  pasquinades  on  noted  sharpers, 
and  criticisms  on  popular  preachers.  The  aim  of  Steele  does 


312  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

not  appear  to  have  been  at  first  higher  than  this.  He  was  not 
ill  qualified  to  conduct  the  work  which  he  had  planned.  His 
public  intelligence  he  drew  from  the  best  sources.  He  knew 
the  town,  and  had  paid  dear  for  his  knowledge.  He  had  read 
much  more  than  the  dissipated  men  of  that  time  were  in  the 
habit  of  reading.  He  was  a  rake  among  scholars,  and  a  scholar 
among  rakes.  His  style  was  easy  and  not  incorrect;  and,  though 
his  wit  and  humour  were  of  no  high  order,  his  gay  animal  spirits 
imparted  to  his  compositions  an  air  of  vivacity  which  ordinary 
readers  could  hardly  distinguish  from  comic  genius.  His 
writings  have  been  well  compared  to  those  light  wines  which, 
though  deficient  in  body  and  flavour,  are  yet  a  pleasant  small 
drink,  if  not  kept  too  long  or  carried  too  far. 

Isaac  Bickerstaff,  Esquire,  Astrologer,  was  an  imaginary  per- 
son, almost  as  well  known  in  that  age  as  Mr.  Paul  Pry  or 
Mr.  Samuel  Pickwick  in  ours.  Swift  had  assumed  the  name 
of  Bickerstaff  in  a  satirical  pamphlet  against  Partridge,  the 
maker  of  almanacks.  Partridge  had  been  fool  enough  to  pub- 
lish a  furious  reply.  Bickerstaff  had  rejoined  in  a  second 
pamphlet  still  more  diverting  than  the  first.  All  the  wits  had 
combined  to  keep  up  the  joke,  and  the  town  was  long  in  con- 
vulsions of  laughter.  Steele  determined  to  employ  the  name 
which  this  controversy  had  made  popular ;  and,  in  April,  1 709, 
it  was  announced  that  Isaac  Bickerstaff,  Esquire,  Astrologer, 
was  about  to  publish  a  paper  called  the  Tatler. 

Addison  had  not  been  consulted  about  this  scheme  :  but  as 
soon  as  he  heard  of  it,  he  determined  to  give  his  assistance. 
The  effect  of  that  assistance  cannot  be  better  described  than 
in  Steele's  own  words.  "I  fared,"  he  said,  "like  a  distressed 
prince  who  calls  in  a  powerful  neighbour  to  his  aid.  I  was 
undone  by  my  auxiliary.  When  I  had  once  called  him  in,  I 
could  not  subsist  without  dependence  on  him."  "The  paper," 
he  says  elsewhere,  "  was  advanced  indeed.  It  was  raised  to  a 
greater  thing  than  I  intended  it." 

It  is  probable  that  Addison,  when  he  sent  across  St.  George's 
Channel  his  first  contributions  to  the  Tatler,  had  no  notion  of 


ADDISON  313 

the  extent  and  variety  of  his  own  powers.  He  was  the  pos- 
sessor of  a  vast  mine  rich  with  a  hundred  ores.  But  he  had 
been  acquainted  only  with  the  least  precious  part  of  his  treas- 
ures, and  had  hitherto  contented  himself  with  producing  some- 
times copper  and  sometimes  lead,  intermingled  with  a  little 
silver.  All  at  once,  and  by  mere  accident,  he  had  lighted  on 
an  inexhaustible  vein  of  the  finest  gold. 

The  mere  choice  and  arrangement  of  his  words  would  have 
sufficed  to  make  his  essays  classical.  For  never,  not  even  by 
Dryden,  not  even  by  Temple,  had  the  English  language  been 
written  with  such  sweetness,  grace,  and  facility.  But  this  was 
the  smallest  part  of  Addison's  praise.  Had  he  clothed  his 
thoughts  in  the  half-French  style  of  Horace  Walpole,  or  in 
the  half-Latin  style  of  Dr.  Johnson,  or  in  the  half-German 
jargon  of  the  present  day,  his  genius  would  have  triumphed 
over  all  faults  of  manner.  As  a  moral  satirist  he  stands  un- 
rivalled. If  ever  the  best  Tatlers  and  Spectators  were  equalled 
in  their  own  kind,  we  should  be  inclined  to  guess  that  it  must 
have  been  by  the  lost  comedies  of  Menander. 

In  wit,  properly  so  called,  Addison  was  not  inferior  to  Cowley 
or  Butler.  No  single  ode  of  Cowley  contains  so  many  happy 
analogies  as  are  crowded  into  the  lines  to  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller; 
and  we  would  undertake  to  collect  from  the  Spectators  as  great 
a  number  of  ingenious  illustrations  as  can  be  found  in  Hudibras. 
The  still  higher  faculty  of  invention  Addison  possessed  in  still 
larger  measure.  The  numerous  fictions,  generally  original, 
often  wild  and  grotesque,  but  always  singularly  graceful  and 
happy,  which  are  found  in  his  essays  fully  entitle  him  to  the 
rank  of  a  great  poet — a  rank  to  which  his  metrical  compositions 
give  him  no  claim.  As  an  observer  of  life,  of  manners,  of  all 
the  shades  of  human  character,  he  stands  in  the  first  class. 
And  what  he  observed  he  had  the  art  of  communicating  in  two 
widely  different  ways.  He  could  describe  virtues,  vices,  habits, 
whims,  as  well  as  Clarendon.  But  he  could  do  something 
better.  He  could  call  human  beings  into  existence,  and  make 
them  exhibit  themselves.  If  we  wish  to  find  anything  more 


314  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

vivid  than  Addison's  best  portraits,  we  must  go  either  to 
Shakspeare  or  to  Cervantes. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  Addison's  humour  —  of  his  sense  of 
the  ludicrous,  of  his  power  of  awakening  that  sense  in  others, 
and  of  drawing  mirth  from  incidents  which  occur  every  day, 
and  from  little  peculiarities  of  temper  and  manner,  such  as  may 
be  found  in  every  man  ?  We  feel  the  charm  ;  we  give  ourselves 
up  to  it ;  but  we  strive  in  vain  to  analyze  it. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  of  describing  Addison's  peculiar 
pleasantry  is  to  compare  it  with  the  pleasantry  of  some  other 
great  satirists.  The  three  most  eminent  masters  of  the  art  of 
ridicule  during  the  eighteenth  century,  were,  we  conceive, 
Addison,  Swift,  and  Voltaire.  Which  of  the  three  had  the 
greatest  power  of  moving  laughter  may  be  questioned.  But 
each  of  them,  within  his  own  domain,  was  supreme. 

Voltaire  is  the  prince  of  buffoons.  His  merriment  is  without 
disguise  or  restraint.  He  gambols ;  he  grins ;  he  shakes  his 
sides ;  he  points  the  finger ;  he  turns  up  the  nose ;  he  shoots 
out  the  tongue.  The  manner  of  Swift  is  the  very  opposite  to 
this.  He  moves  laughter,  but  never  joins  in  it.  He  appears  in 
his  works  such  as  he  appeared  in  society.  All  the  company  are 
convulsed  with  merriment,  while  the  Dean,  the  author  of  all 
the  mirth,  preserves  an  invincible  gravity,  and  even  sourness  of 
aspect,  and  gives  utterance  to  the  most  eccentric  and  ludicrous 
fancies  with  the  air  of  a  man  reading  the  commination  service. 

The  manner  of  Addison  is  as  remote  from  that  of  Swift  as 
from  that  of  Voltaire.  He  neither  laughs  out  like  the  French 
wit,  nor,  like  the  Irish  wit,  throws  a  double  portion  of  severity 
into  his  countenance  while  laughing  inwardly ;  but  preserves  a 
look  peculiarly  his  own  —  a  look  of  demure  serenity,  disturbed 
only  by  an  arch  sparkle  of  the  eye,  an  almost  imperceptible 
elevation  of  the  brow,  an  almost  imperceptible  curl  of  the  lip. 
His  tone  is  never  that  either  of  a  Jack  Pudding  or  of  a  Cynic. 
It  is  that  of  a  gentleman  in  whom  the  quickest  sense  of  the 
ridiculous  is  constantly  tempered  by  good  nature  and  good 
breeding. 


ADDISON  315 

We  own  that  the  humour  of  Addison  is,  in  our  opinion,  of 
a  more  delicious  flavour  than  the  humour  of  either  Swift  or 
Voltaire.  Thus  much,  at  least,  is  certain,  that  both  Swift  and 
Voltaire  have  been  successfully  mimicked,  and  that  no  man 
has  yet  been  able  to  mimic  Addison.  The  letter  of  the  Abb6 
Coyer  to  Pansophe  is  Voltaire  all  over,  and  imposed  during  a 
long  time  on  the  Academicians  of  Paris.  There  are  passages 
in  Arbuthnot's  satirical  works  which  we,  at  least,  cannot  dis- 
tinguish from  Swift's  best  writing.  But  of  the  many  eminent 
men  who  have  made  Addison  their  model,  though  several  have 
copied  his  mere  diction  with  happy  effect,  none  has  been  able 
to  catch  the  tone  of  his  pleasantry.  In  the  World,  in  the 
Connoisseur,  in  the  Mirror,  in  the  Lounger,  there  are  numer- 
ous papers  written  in  obvious  imitation  of  his  Tatlers  and 
Spectators.  Most  of  those  papers  have  some  merit ;  many  are 
very  lively  and  amusing ;  but  there  is  not  a  single  one  which 
could  be  passed  off  as  Addison's  on  a  critic  of  the  smallest 
perspicacity. 

But  that  which  chiefly  distinguishes  Addison  from  Swift, 
from  Voltaire,  from  almost  all  the  other  great  masters  of  ridi- 
cule, is  the  grace,  the  nobleness,  the  moral  purity,  which  we 
find  even  in  his  merriment.  Severity,  gradually  hardening  and 
darkening  into  misanthropy,  characterizes  the  works  of  Swift. 
The  nature  of  Voltaire  was,  indeed,  not  inhuman ;  but  he  ven- 
erated nothing.  Neither  in  the  masterpieces  of  art  nor  in  the 
purest  examples  of  virtue,  neither  in  the  Great  First  Cause 
nor  in  the  awful  enigma  of  the  grave,  could  he  see  anything 
but  subjects  for  drollery.  The  more  solemn  and  august  the 
theme,  the  more  monkey-like  was  his  grimacing  and  chattering. 
The  mirth  of  Swift  is  the  mirth  of  Mephistopheles ;  the  mirth 
of  Voltaire  is  the  mirth  of  Puck.  If,  as  Soame  Jenyns  oddly 
imagined,  a  portion  of  the  happiness  of  Seraphim  and  just 
men  made  perfect  be  derived  from  an  exquisite  perception  of 
the  ludicrous,  their  mirth  must  surely  be  none  other  than  the 
mirth  of  Addison  —  a  mirth  consistent  with  tender  compassion 
for  all  that  is  frail,  and  with  profound  reverence  for  all  that 


316  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

is  sublime.  Nothing  great,  nothing  amiable,  no  moral  duty,  no 
doctrine  of  natural  or  revealed  religion,  has  ever  been  asso- 
ciated by  Addison  with  any  degrading  idea.  His  humanity 
is  without  parallel  in  literary  history.  The  highest  proof  of 
virtue  is  to  possess  boundless  power  without  abusing  it.  No 
kind  of  power  is  more  formidable  than  the  power  of  making 
men  ridiculous ;  and  that  power  Addison  possessed  in  bound- 
less measure.  How  grossly  that  power  was  abused  by  Swift 
and  by  Voltaire  is  well  known.  But  of  Addison  it  may  be 
confidently  affirmed  that  he  has  blackened  no  man's  character ; 
nay,  that  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  find  in  all 
the  volumes  which  he  has  left  us  a  single  taunt  which  can  be 
called  ungenerous  or  unkind.  Yet  he  had  detractors  whose 
malignity  might  have  seemed  to  justify  as  terrible  a  revenge 
as  that  which  men  not  superior  to  him  in  genius  wreaked  on 
Bettesworth  and  on  Franc  de  Pompignan.  He  was  a  politi- 
cian ;  he  was  the  best  writer  of  his  party ;  he  lived  in  times 
of  fierce  excitement,  in  times  when  persons  of  high  character 
and  station  stooped  to  scurrility  such  as  is  now  practised  only 
by  the  basest  of  mankind.  Yet  no  provocation  and  no  exam- 
ple could  induce  him  to  return  railing  for  railing. 

Of  the  service  which  his  Essays  rendered  to  morality  it  is 
difficult  to  speak  too  highly.  It  is  true  that,  when  the  Tatler 
appeared,  that  age  of  outrageous  profaneness  and  licentious- 
ness which  followed  the  Restoration  had  passed  away.  Jeremy 
Collier  had  shamed  the  theatres  into  something  which,  com- 
pared with  the  excesses  of  Etherege  and  Wycherley,  might  be 
called  decency.  Yet  there  still  lingered  in  the  public  mind  a 
pernicious  notion  that  there  was  some  connection  between 
genius  and  profligacy,  between  the  domestic  virtues  and  the 
sullen  formality  of  the  Puritans.  That  error  it  is  the  glory  of 
Addison  to  have  dispelled.  He  taught  the  nation  that  the 
faith  and  the  morality  of  Hale  and  Tillotson  might  be  found 
in  company  with  wit  more  sparkling  than  the  wit  of  Congreve, 
and  with  humour  richer  than  the  humour  of  Vanbrugh.  So 
effectually,  indeed,  did  he  retort  on  vice  the  mockery  which  had 


ADDISON  317 

recently  been  directed  against  virtue  that,  since  his  time,  the 
open  violation  of  decency  has  always  been  considered  among 
us  as  the  mark  of  a  fool.  And  this  revolution,  the  greatest  and 
most  salutary  ever  effected  by  any  satirist,  he  accomplished,  be 
it  remembered,  without  writing  one  personal  lampoon. 

In  the  earlier  contributions  of  Addison  to  the  Tatler  his 
peculiar  powers  were  not  fully  exhibited.  Yet  from  the  first 
his  superiority  to  all  his  coadjutors  was  evident.  Some  of  his 
later  Tatlers  are  fully  equal  to  anything  that  he  ever  wrote. 
Among  the  portraits  we  most  admire  "  Tom  Folio,"  "  Ned 
Softly,"  and  the  "Political  Upholsterer."  "The  Proceedings 
of  the  Court  of  Honour,"  the  "Thermometer  of  Zeal,"  the 
story  of  the  "  Frozen  Words,"  the  "  Memoirs  of  the  Shilling," 
are  excellent  specimens  of  that  ingenious  and  lively  species  of 
fiction  in  which  Addison  excelled  all  men.  There  is  one  still 
better  paper  of  the  same  class.  But  though  that  paper,  a 
hundred  and  thirty-three  years  ago,  was  probably  thought  as 
edifying  as  one  of  Smalridge's  sermons,  we  dare  not  indicate 
it  to  the  squeamish  readers  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

During  the  session  of  Parliament  which  commenced  in 
November,  1709,  and  which  the  impeachment  of  Sacheverell 
has  made  memorable,  Addison  appears  to  have  resided  in 
London.  The  Tatler  was  now  more  popular  than  any  period- 
ical paper  had  ever  been,  and  his  connection  with  it  was 
generally  knflwn.  It  was  not  known,  however,  that  almost 
everything  good  in  the  Tatler  was  his.  The  truth  is  that  the 
fifty  or  sixty  numbers  which  we  owe  to  him  were  not  merely 
the  best,  but  so  decidedly  the  best  that  any  five  of  them  are 
more  valuable  than  all  the  two  hundred  numbers  in  which  he 
had  no  share. 

He  required,  at  this  time,  all  the  solace  which  he  could 
derive  from  literary  success.  The  Queen  had  always  disliked 
the  Whigs.  She  had  during  some  years  disliked  the  Marl- 
borough  family.  But,  reigning  by  a  disputed  title,  she  could 
not  venture  directly  to  oppose  herself  to  a  majority  of  both 
Houses  of  Parliament ;  and,  engaged  as  she  was  in  a  war  on 


318  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  event  of  which  her  own  Crown  was  staked,  she  could  not 
venture  to  disgrace  a  great  and  successful  general.  But  at 
length,  in  the  year  1710,  the  causes  which  had  restrained  her 
from  showing  her  aversion  to  the  Low  Church  party  ceased 
to  operate.  The  trial  of  Sacheverell  produced  an  outbreak  of 
public  feeling  scarcely  less  violent  than  the  outbreaks  which 
we  can  ourselves  remember  in  1820  and  1831.  The  country 
gentlemen,  the  country  clergymen,  the  rabble  of  the  towns, 
were  all,  for  once,  on  the  same  side.  It  was  clear  that,  if  a 
general  election  took  place  before  the  excitement  abated,  the 
Tories  would  have  a  majority.  The  services  of  Marlborough 
had  been  so  splendid  that  they  were  no  longer  necessary. 
The  Queen's  throne  was  secure  from  all  attack  on  the  part  of 
Louis.  Indeed,  it  seemed  much  more  likely  that  the  English 
and  German  armies  would  divide  the  spoils  of  Versailles  and 
Marli  than  that  a  Marshal  of  France  would  bring  back  the 
Pretender  to  St.  James's.  The  Queen,  acting  by  the  advice 
of  Harley,  determined  to  dismiss  her  servants.  In  June  the 
change  commenced.  Sunderland  was  the  first  who  fell.  The 
Tories  exulted  over  his  fall.  The  Whigs  tried,  during  a  few 
weeks,  to  persuade  themselves  that  her  Majesty  had  acted 
only  from  personal  dislike  to  the  Secretary,  and  that  she 
meditated  no  further  alteration.  But,  early  in  August,  Godol- 
phin  was  surprised  by  a  letter  from  Anne  which  directed  him 
to  break  his  white  staff.  Even  after  this  event,  *he  irresolu- 
tion or  dissimulation  of  Harley  kept  up  the  hopes  of  the 
Whigs  during  another  month ;  and  then  the  ruin  became 
rapid  and  violent.  The  Parliament  was  dissolved.  The  Min- 
isters were  turned  out.  The  Tories  were  called  to  office.  The 
tide  of  popularity  ran  violently  in  favour  of  the  High  Church 
party.  That  party,  feeble  in  the  late  House  of  Commons, 
was  now  irresistible.  The  power  which  the  Tories  had  thus 
suddenly  acquired,  they  used  with  blind  and  stupid  ferocity. 
The  howl  which  the  whole  pack  set  up  for  prey  and  for  blood 
appalled  even  him  who  had  roused  and  unchained  them. 
When,  at  this  distance  of  time,  we  calmly  review  the  conduct 


ADDISON  319 

of  the  discarded  Ministers,  we  cannot  but  feel  a  movement  of 
indignation  at  the  injustice  with  which  they  were  treated.  No 
body  of  men  had  ever  administered  the  Government  with 
more  energy,  ability,  and  moderation  ;  and  their  success  had 
been  proportioned  to  their  wisdom.  They  had  saved  Holland 
and  Germany.  They  had  humbled  France.  They  had,  as  it 
seemed,  all  but  torn  Spain  from  the  House  of  Bourbon. 
They  had  made  England  the  first  power  in  Europe.  At  home 
they  had  united  England  and  Scotland.  They  had  respected 
the  rights  of  conscience  and  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  They 
retired,  leaving  their  country  at  the  height  of  prosperity  and 
glory.  And  yet  they  were  pursued  to  their  retreat  by  such  a 
roar  of  obloquy  as  was  never  raised  against  the  Government 
which  threw  away  thirteen  colonies,  or  against  the  Govern- 
ment which  sent  a  gallant  army  to  perish  in  the  ditches  of 
Walcheren. 

None  of  the  Whigs  suffered  more  in  the  general  wreck 
than  Addison.  He  had  just  sustained  some  heavy  pecuniary 
losses,  of  the  nature  of  which  we  are  imperfectly  informed, 
when  the  Secretaryship  was  taken  from  him.  He  had  reason 
to  believe  that  he  should  also  be  deprived  of  the  small  Irish 
office  which  he  held  by  patent.  He  had  just  resigned  his 
Fellowship.  It  seems  probable  that  he  had  already  ventured 
to  raise  his  eyes  to  a  great  lady,  and  that,  while  his  political 
friends  were  in  power  and  while  his  own  fortunes  were  rising, 
he  had  been,  in  the  phrase  of  the  romances  which  were  then 
fashionable,  permitted  to  hope.  But  Mr.  Addison  the  ingen- 
ious writer  and  Mr.  Addison  the  Chief  Secretary  were,  in 
her  ladyship's  opinion,  two  very  different  persons.  All  these 
calamities  united,  however,  could  not  disturb  the  serene  cheer- 
fulness of  a  mind  conscious  of  innocence  and  rich  in  its  own 
wealth.  He  told  his  friends,  with  smiling  resignation,  that 
they  ought  to  admire  his  philosophy ;  that  he  had  lost  at  once 
his  fortune,  his  place,  his  Fellowship,  and  his  mistress ;  that 
he  must  think  of  turning  tutor  again,  and  yet  that  his  spirits 
were  as  good  as  ever. 


320  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  had  one  consolation.  Of  the  unpopularity  which  his 
friends  had  incurred,  he  had  no  share.  Such  was  the  esteem 
with  which  he  was  regarded  that,  while  the  most  violent 
measures  were  taken  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  Tory  members 
on  Whig  corporations,  he  was  returned  to  Parliament  without 
even  a  contest.  Swift,  who  was  now  in  London,  and  who  had 
already  determined  on  quitting  the  Whigs,  wrote  to  Stella  in 
these  remarkable  words  :  "  The  Tories  carry  it  among  the  new 
members  six  to  one.  Mr.  Addison's  election  has  passed  easy 
and  undisputed ;  and  I  believe  if  he  had  a  mind  to  be  king, 
he  would  hardly  be  refused." 

The  goodwill  with  which  the  Tories  regarded  Addison  is 
the  more  honourable  to  him  because  it  had  not  been  pur- 
chased by  any  concession  on  his  part.  During  the  general 
election  he  published  a  political  Journal  entitled  the  Whig 
Examiner.  Of  that  Journal  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say  that 
Johnson,  in  spite  of  his  strong  political  prejudices,  pronounced 
it  to  be  superior  in  wit  to  any  of  Swift's  writings  on  the  other 
side.  When  it  ceased  to  appear,  Swift,  in  a  letter  to  Stella, 
expressed  his  exultation  at  the  death  of  so  formidable  an 
antagonist.  "He  might  well  rejoice,"  says  Johnson,  "at  the 
death  of  that  which  he  could  not  have  killed."  "  On  no  occa- 
sion," he  adds,  "  was  the  genius  of  Addison  more  vigorously 
exerted,  and  on  none  did  the  superiority  of  his  powers  more 
evidently  appear." 

The  only  use  which  Addison  appears  to  have  made  of  the 
favour  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  the  Tories  was  to  save 
some  of  his  friends  from  the  general  ruin  of  the  Whig  party. 
He  felt  himself  to  be  in  a  situation  which  made  it  his  duty  to 
take  a  decided  part  in  politics.  But  the  case  of  Steele  and  of 
Ambrose  Philips  was  different.  For  Philips,  Addison  even 
condescended  to  solicit,  with  what  success  we  have  not  ascer- 
tained. Steele  held  two  places.  He  was  Gazetteer,  and  he 
was  also  a  Commissioner  of  Stamps.  The  Gazette  was  taken 
from  him.  But  he  was  suffered  to  retain  his  place  in  the 
Stamp  Office  on, an  implied  understanding  that  he  should  not 


ADDISON  321 

be  active  against  the  new  Government ;  and  he  was,  during 
more  than  two  years,  induced  by  Addison  to  observe  this  armi- 
stice with  tolerable  fidelity. 

Isaac  Bickerstaff  accordingly  became  silent  upon  politics,  and 
the  article  of  news,  which  had  once  formed  about  one-third  of 
his  paper,  altogether  disappeared.  .The  Tatler  had  completely 
changed  its  character.  It  was  now  nothing  but  a  series  of 
essays  on  books,  morals,  and  manners.  Steele  therefore  re- 
solved to  bring  it  to  a  close,  and  to  commence  a  new  work 
on  an  improved  plan.  It  was  announced  that  this  new  work 
would  be  published  daily.  The  undertaking  was  generally  re- 
garded as  bold,  or  rather  rash;  but  the  event  amply  justified 
the  confidence  with  which  Steele  relied  on  the  fertility  of 
Addison's  genius.  On  the  second  of  January,  1711,  appeared 
the  last  Tatler.  At  the  beginning  of  March  following  appeared 
the  first  of  an  incomparable  series  of  papers  containing  obser- 
vations on  life  and  literature  by  an  imaginary  Spectator. 

The  Spectator  himself  was  conceived  and  drawn  by  Addison ; 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  doubt  that  the  portrait  was  meant  to  be 
in  some  features  a  likeness  of  the  painter.  The  Spectator  is 
a  gentleman  who,  after  passing  a  studious  youth  at  the  univer- 
sity, has  travelled  on  classic  ground,  and  has  bestowed  much 
attention  on  curious  points  of  antiquity.  He  has,  on  his  return, 
fixed  his  residence  in  London,  and  has  observed  all  the  forms 
of  life  which  are  to  be  found  in  that  great  city  —  has  daily 
listened  to  the  wits  of  Will's,  has  smoked  with  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  Grecian,  and  has  mingled  with  the  parsons  at 
Child's,  and  with  the  politicians  at  the  St.  James's.  In  the 
morning  he  often  listens  to  the  hum  of  the  Exchange ;  in 
the  evening  his  face  is  constantly  to  be  seen  in  the  pit  of 
Drury  Lane  Theatre.  But  an  insurmountable  bashfulness  pre- 
vents him  from  opening  his  mouth,  except  in  a  small  circle 
of  intimate  friends. 

These  friends  were  first  sketched  by  Steele.     Four  of  the 

club  —  the  templar,  the  clergyman,  the  soldier,  and  the  merchant 

—  were  uninteresting  figures,  fit  only  for  a  background.    But  the 


322  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

other  two  —  an  old  country  baronet  and  an  old  town  rake  — 
though  not  delineated  with  a  very  delicate  pencil,  had  some 
good  strokes.  Addison  took  the  rude  outlines  into  his  own 
hands,  retouched  them,  coloured  them,  and  is  in  truth  the 
creator  of  the  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  and  the  Will  Honey- 
comb with  whom  we  are  all  familiar. 

The  plan  of  the  Spectator  must  be  allowed  to  be  both  orig- 
inal and  eminently  happy.  Every  valuable  essay  in  the  series 
may  be  read  with  pleasure  separately ;  yet  the  five  or  six  hun- 
dred essays  form  a  whole,  and  a  whole  which  has  the  interest 
of  a  novel.'  It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  at  that  time 
no  novel  giving  a  lively  and  powerful  picture  of  the  common 
life  and  manners  of  England  had  appeared.  Richardson  was 
working  as  a  compositor.  Fielding  was  robbing  birds'  nests. 
Smollett  was  not  yet  born.  The  narrative,  therefore,  which 
connects  together  the  Spectator's  Essays  gave  to  our  ancestors 
their  first  taste  of  an  exquisite  and  untried  pleasure.  That 
narrative  was  indeed  constructed  with  no  art  or  labour.  The 
events  were  such  events  as  occur  every  day.  Sir  Roger  comes 
up  to  town  to  see  Eugenio  (as  the  worthy  baronet  always 
called  Prince  Eugene),  goes  with  the  Spectator  on  the  water  to 
Spring  Gardens,  walks  among  the  tombs  in  the  Abbey,  and 
is  frightened  by  the  Mohawks,  but  conquers  his  apprehension 
so  far  as  to  go  to  the  theatre  when  the  Distressed  Mother  is 
acted.  The  Spectator  pays  a  visit  in  the  summer  to  Coverley 
Hall,  is  charmed  with  the  old  house,  the  old  butler,  and  the 
old  chaplain,  eats  a  jack  caught  by  Will  Wimble,  rides  to  the 
assizes,  and  hears  a  point  of  law  discussed  by  Tom  Touchy. 
At  last  a  letter  from  the  honest  butler  brings  to  the  club  the 
news  that  Sir  Roger  is  dead.  Will  Honeycomb  marries  and 
reforms  at  sixty.  The  club  breaks  up,  and  the  Spectator 
resigns  his  functions.  Such  events  can  hardly  be  said  to  form 
a  plot ;  yet  they  are  related  with  such  truth,  such  grace,  such 
wit,  such  humour,  such  pathos,  such  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart,  such  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  the  world,  that  they 
charm  us  on  the  hundredth  perusal.  We  have  not  the  least 


ADDISON  323 

doubt  that  if  Addison  had  written  a  novel  on  an  extensive 
plan,  it  would  have  been  superior  to  any  that  we  possess.  As 
it  is,  he  is  entitled  to  be  considered  not  only  as  the  greatest 
of  the  English  essayists,  but  as  the  forerunner  of  the  greatest 
English  novelists. 

We  say  this  of  Addison  alone,  for  Addison  is  the  Spectator. 
About  three-sevenths  of  the  work  are  his ;  and  it  is  no  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  his  worst  essay  is  as  good  as  the  best 
essay  of  his  coadjutors.  His  best  essays  approach  near  to  abso- 
lute perfection ;  nor  is  their  excellence  more  wonderful  than 
their  variety.  His  invention  never  seems  to  flag ;  nor  is  he 
ever  under  the  necessity  of  repeating  himself,  or  of  wearing 
out  a  subject.  There  are  no  dregs  in  his  wine.  He  regales 
us  after  the  fashion  of  that  prodigal  nabob  who  held  that  there 
was  only  one  good  glass  in  a  bottle.  As  soon  as  we  have 
tasted  the  first  sparkling  foam  of  a  jest,  it  is  withdrawn,  and 
a  fresh  draught  of  nectar  is  at  our  lips.  On  the  Monday  we 
have  an  allegory  as  lively  and  ingenious  as  Lucian's  Auction 
of  Lives ;  on  the  Tuesday,  an  Eastern  apologue  as  richly 
coloured  as  the  Tales  of  Scherezade ;  on  the  Wednesday,  a 
character  described  with  the  skill  of  La  Bruyere ;  on  the 
Thursday,  a  scene  from  common  life,  equal  to  the  best  chapters 
in  the  Vicar  of  Wakcfield ;  on  the  Friday,  some  sly  Horatian 
pleasantry  on  fashionable  follies,  on  hoops,  patches,  or  puppet 
shows ;  and,  on  the  Saturday,  a  religious  meditation  which  will 
bear  a  comparison  with  the  finest  passages  in  Massillon. 

It  is  dangerous  to  select  where  there  is  so  much  that  de- 
serves the  highest  praise.  We  will  venture,  however,  to  say 
that  any  person  who  wishes  to  form  a  just  notion  of  the  extent 
and  variety  of  Addison's  powers  will  do  well  to  read  at  one 
sitting  the  following  papers :  the  two  "  Visits  to  the  Abbey," 
the  "Visit  to  the  Exchange,"  the  "Journal  of  the  Retired 
Citizen,"  the  "Vision  of  Mirza,"  the  "Transmigrations  of  Pug 
the  Monkey,"  and  the  "  Death  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley." J 

1  Nos.  26,  329,  69,  317,  159,  343,  517.  These  papers  are  all  in  the  first  seven 
volumes.  The  eighth  must  be  considered  as  a  separate  work. 


324  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

The  least  valuable  of  Addison's  contributions  to  the  Spectator 
are,  in  the  judgment  of  our  age,  his  critical  papers.  Yet  his 
critical  papers  are  always  luminous,  and  often  ingenious.  The 
very  worst  of  them  must  be  regarded  as  creditable  to  him, 
when  the  character  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been  trained 
is  fairly  considered.  The  best  of  them  were  much  too  good 
for  his  readers.  In  truth,  he  was  not  so  far  behind  our  gen- 
eration as  he  was  before  his  own.  No  essays  in  the  Spectator 
were  more  censured  and  derided  than  those  in  which  he  raised 
his  voice  against  the  contempt  with  which  our  fine  old  ballads 
were  regarded,  and  showed  the  scoffers  that  the  same  gold 
which,  burnished  and  polished,  gives  lustre  to  the  ALneid  and 
the  Odes  of  Horace  is  mingled  with  the  rude  dross  of  Chevy 
Chase. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  success  of  the  Spectator  should 
have  been  such  as  no  similar  work  has  ever  obtained.  The 
number  of  copies  daily  distributed  was  at  first  three  thousand. 
It  subsequently  increased,  and  had  risen  to  near  four  thousand 
when  the  stamp  tax  was  imposed.  That  tax  was  fatal  to  a 
crowd  of  journals.  The  Spectator,  how'ever,  stood  its  ground, 
doubled  its  price,  and,  though  its  circulation  fell  off,  still 
yielded  a  large  revenue  both  to  the  State  and  to  the  authors. 
For  particular  papers  the  demand  was  immense ;  of  some,  it 
is  said,  twenty  thousand  copies  were  required.  But  this  was 
not  all.  To  have  the  Spectator  served  up  every  morning  with 
the  bohea  and  rolls  was  a  luxury  for  the  few.  The  majority 
were  content  to  wait  till  essays  enough  had  appeared  to  form 
a  volume.  Ten  thousand  copies  of  each  volume  were  imme- 
diately taken  off,  and  new  editions  were  called  for.  It  must 
be  remembered  that  the  population  of  England  was  then 
hardly  a  third  of  what  it  now  is.  The  number  of  Englishmen 
who  were  in  the  habit  of  reading  was  probably  not  a  sixth  of 
what  it  now  is.  A  shopkeeper  or  a  farmer  who  found  any 
pleasure  in  literature  was  a  rarity.  Nay,  there  was  doubtless 
more  than  one  knight  of  the  shire  whose  country  seat  did  not 
contain  ten  books,  receipt  books  and  books  on  farriery  included. 


ADDISON  325 

In  these  circumstances,  the  sale  of  the  Spectator  must  be  con- 
sidered as  indicating  a  popularity  quite  as  great  as  that  of  the 
most  successful  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Mr.  Dickens  ^x^ 
in  our  own  time.  /^^ 

At  the  close  of  1712  the  Spectator  ceased  to  appear.  It 
was  probably  felt  that  the  short-faced  gentleman  and  his  club 
had  been  long  enough  before  the  town,  and  that  it  was  time 
to  withdraw  them,  and  to  replace  them  by  a  new  set  of  charac- 
ters. In  a  few  weeks  the  first  number  of  the  Guardian  was 
published.  But  the  Guardian  was  unfortunate  both  in  its  birth 
and  in  its  death.  It  began  in  dulness,  and  disappeared  in  a 
tempest  of  faction.  The  original  plan  was  bad.  Addison  con- 
tributed nothing  till  sixty-six  numbers  had  appeared  ;  and  it  was 
then  impossible  to  make  the  Guardian  what  the  Spectator  had 
been.  Nestor  Ironside  and  the  Miss  Lizards  were  people  to 
whom  even  he  could  impart  no  interest.  He  could  only  furnish 
some  excellent  little  essays,  both  serious  and  comic,  and  this 
he  did. 

Why  Addison  gave  no  assistance  to  the  Guardian  during 
the  first  two  months  of  its  existence  is  a  question  which  has 
puzzled  the  editors  and  biographers,  but  which  seems  to  us  to 
admit  of  a  very  easy  solution.  ,  He  was  then  engaged  in  bring- 
ing his  Cato  on  the  stage. 

The  first  four  acts  of  this  drama  had  been  lying  in  his  desk 
since  his  return  from  Italy.  His  modest  and  sensitive  nature 
shrank  from  the  risk  of  a  public  and  shameful  failure ;  and, 
though  all  who  saw  the  manuscript  were  loud  in  praise,  some 
thought  it  possible  that  an  audience  might  become  impatient 
even  of  very  good  rhetoric,  and  advised  Addison  to  print  the 
play  without  hazarding  a  representation.  At  length,  after  many 
fits  of  apprehension,  the  poet  yielded  to  the  urgency  of  his 
political  friends,  who  hoped  that  the  public  would  discover  some 
analogy  between  the  followers  of  Caesar  and  the  Tories,  between 
Sempronius  and  the  apostate  Whigs,  between  Cato,  struggling 
to  the  last  for  the  liberties  of  Rome,  and  the  band  of  patriots 
who  still  stood  firm  around  Halifax  and  Wharton. 


326  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Addison  gave  the  play  to  the  managers  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre  without  stipulating  for  any  advantage  to  himself. 
They  therefore  thought  themselves  bound  to  spare  no  cost  in 
scenery  and  dresses.  The  decorations,  it  is  true,  would  not 
have  pleased  the  skilful  eye  of  Mr.  Macready.  Juba's  waistcoat 
blazed  with  gold  lace ;  Marcia's  hoop  was  worthy  of  a  Duchess 
on  the  birthday ;  and  Cato  wore  a  wig  worth  fifty  guineas. 
The  prologue  was  written  by  Pope,  and  is  undoubtedly  a  dig- 
nified and  spirited  composition.  The  part  of  the  hero  was  ex- 
cellently played  by  Booth.  Steele  undertook  to  pack  a  house. 
The  boxes  were  in  a  blaze  with  the  stars  of  the  Peers  in  Op- 
position. The  pit  was  crowded  with  atfentive  and  friendly 
listeners  from  the  Inns  of  Court  and  the  literary  coffee-houses. 
Sir  Gilbert  Heathcote,  Governor  of  the  Bank  of  England,  was 
at  the  head  of  a  powerful  body  of  auxiliaries  from  the  city, 
warm  men  and  true  Whigs,  but  better  known  at  Jonathan's 
and  Garraway's  than  in  the  haunts  of  wits  and  critics. 

These  precautions  were  quite  superfluous.  The  Tories,  as  a 
body,  regarded  Addison  with  no  unkind  feelings.  Nor  was  it 
for  their  interest,  professing,  as  they  did,  profound  reverence 
for  law  and  prescription,  and  abhorrence  both  of  popular  insur- 
rections and  of  standing  armies,  to  appropriate  to  themselves 
reflections  thrown  on  the  great  military  chief  and  demagogue, 
who,  with  the  support  of  the  legions  and  of  the  common 
people,  subverted  all  the  ancient  institutions  of  his  country. 
Accordingly,  every  shout  that  was  raised  by  the  members  of 
the  Kit  Cat  was  echoed  by  the  High  Churchmen  of  the  Octo- 
ber; and  the  curtain  at  length  fell  amidst  thunders  of 
unanimous  applause. 

The  delight  and  admiration  of  the  town  were  described  by 
the  Guardian  in  terms  which  we  might  attribute  to  partiality, 
were  it  not  that  the  Examiner,  the  organ  of  the  Ministry,  held 
similar  language.  The  Tories,  indeed,  found  much  to  sneer 
at  in  the  conduct  of  their  opponents.  Steele  had  on  this,  as 
on  other  occasions,  shown  more  zeal  than  taste  or  judgment. 
The  honest  citizens  who  marched  under  the  orders  of  Sir 


ADDISON  327 

Gibby,  as  he  was  facetiously  called,  probably  knew  better  when 
to  buy  and  when  to  sell  stock  than  when  to  clap  and  when  to 
hiss  at  a  play,  and  incurred  some  ridicule  by  making  the  hypo- 
critical Sempronius  their  favourite,  and  by  giving  to  his 
insincere  rants  louder  plaudits  than  they  bestowed  on  the  tem- 
perate eloquence  of  Cato.  Wharton,  too,  who  had  the  incredible 
effrontery  to  applaud  the  lines  about  flying  from  prosperous 
vice  and  from  the  power  of  impious  men  to  a  private  station, 
did  not  escape  the  sarcasms  of  those  who  justly  thought  that 
he  could  fly  from  nothing  more  vicious  or  impious  than  him- 
self. The  epilogue,  which  was  written  by  Garth,  a  zealous 
Whig,  was  severely  and  not  unreasonably  censured  as  ignoble 
and  out  of  place.  But  Addison  was  described,  even  by  the 
bitterest  Tory  writers,  as  a  gentleman  of  wit  and  virtue,  in 
whose  friendship  many  persons  of  both  parties  were  happy, 
and  whose  name  ought  not  to  be  mixed  up  with  factious 
squabbles. 

Of  the  jests  by  which  the  triumph  of  the  Whig  party  was 
disturbed,  the  most  severe  and  happy  was  Bolingbroke's. 
Between  two  acts,  he  sent  for  Booth  to  his  box,  and  presented 
him,  before  the  whole  theatre,  with  a  purse  of  fifty  guineas 
for  defending  the  cause  of  liberty  so  well  against  the  perpetual 
Dictator.  This  was  a  pungent  allusion  to  the  attempt  which 
Marlborough  had  made,  not  long  before  his  fall,  to  obtain  a 
patent,  creating  him  Captain-General  for  life. 

It  was  April ;  and  in  April,  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago, 
the  London  season  was  thought  to  be  far  advanced.  During 
a  whole  month,  however,  Cato  was  performed  to  overflowing 
houses,  and  brought  into  the  treasury  of  the  theatre  twice  the 
gains  of  an  ordinary  spring.  In  the  summer,  the  Drury  Lane 
Company  went  down  to  the  Act  at  Oxford,  and  there,  before 
an  audience  which  retained  an  affectionate  remembrance  of 
Addison 's  accomplishments  and  virtues,  his  tragedy  was  acted 
during  several  days.  The  gownsmen  began  to  besiege  the 
theatre  in  the  forenoon,  and  by  one  in  the  afternoon  all  the 
seats  were  filled. 


328  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

About  the  merits  of  the  piece  which  had  so  extraordinary 
an  effect,  the  public,  we  suppose,  has  made  up  its  mind.  To 
compare  it  with  the  masterpieces  of  the  Attic  stage,  with  the 
great  English  dramas  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  or  even  with 
the  productions  of  Schiller's  manhood,  would  be  absurd  indeed. 
Yet  it  contains  excellent  dialogue  and  declamation,  and  among 
plays  fashioned  on  the  French  model  must  be  allowed  to  rank 
high;  not  indeed  with  Athalie,  or  Saul;  but,  we  think,  not 
below  Cinna,  and  certainly  above  any  other  English  tragedy 
of  the  same  school,  above  many  of  the  plays  of  Corneille, 
above  many  of  the  plays  of  Voltaire  and  Alfieri,  and  above 
some  plays  of  Racine.  Be  this  as  it  may,  we  have  little  doubt 
that  Cato  did  as  much  as  the  Tatlers,  Spectators,  and  Freeholders 
united  to  raise  Addison's  fame  among  his  contemporaries. 

The  modesty  and  good  nature  of  the  successful  dramatist 
had  tamed  even  the  malignity  of  faction.  But  literary  envy, 
it  should  seem,  is  a  fiercer  passion  than  party  spirit.  It  was 
by  a  zealous  Whig  that  the  fiercest  attack  on  the  Whig  tragedy 
was  made.  John  Dennis  published  Remarks  on  Cato,  which 
were  written  with  some  acuteness  and  with  much  coarseness 
and  asperity.  Addison  neither  defended  himself  nor  retaliated. 
On  many  points  he  had  an  excellent  defence,  and  nothing 
would  have  been  easier  than  to  retaliate ;  for  Dennis  had 
written  bad  odes,  bad  tragedies,  bad  comedies ;  he  had,  more- 
over, a  larger  share  than  most  men  of  those  infirmities  and 
eccentricities  which  excite  laughter ;  and  Addison's  power  of 
turning  either  an  absurd  book  or  an  absurd  man  into  ridicule 
was  unrivalled.  Addison,  however,  serenely  conscious  of  his 
superiority,  looked  with  pity  on  his  assailant,  whose  temper, 
naturally  irritable  and  gloomy,  had  been  soured  by  want,  by 
controversy,  and  by  literary  failures. 

But  among  the  young  candidates  for  Addison's  favour  there 
was  one  distinguished  by  talents  from  the  rest,  and  distin- 
guished, we  fear,  not  less  by  malignity  and  insincerity.  Pope 
was  only  twenty-five.  But  his  powers  had  expanded  to  their 
full  maturity ;  and  his  best  poem,  the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  had 


ADDISON  329 

recently  been  published.  Of  his  genius  Addison  had  always 
expressed  high  admiration.  But  Addison  had  early  discerned 
(what  might  indeed  have  been  discerned  by  an  eye  less  pene- 
trating than  his)  that  the  diminutive,  crooked,  sickly  boy  was 
eager  to  revenge  himself  on  society  for  the  unkindness  of 
nature.  In  the  Spectator,  the  Essay  on  Criticism  had  been 
praised  with  cordial  warmth  ;  but  a  gentle  hint  had  been  added 
that  the  writer  of  so  excellent  a  poem  would  have  done  well 
to  avoid  ill-natured  personalities.  Pope,  though  evidently  more 
galled  by  the  censure  than  gratified  by  the  praise,  returned 
thanks  for  the  admonition,  and  promised  to  profit  by  it.  The 
two  writers  continued  to  exchange  civilities,  counsel,  and  small 
good  offices.  Addison  publicly  extolled  Pope's  miscellaneous 
pieces ;  and  Pope  furnished  Addison  with  a  prologue.  This 
did  not  last  long.  Pope  hated  Dennis,  whom  he  had  injured 
without  provocation.  The  appearance  of  the  Remarks  on  Gate 
gave  the  irritable  poet  an  opportunity  of  venting  his  malice 
under  the  show  of  friendship ;  and  such  an  opportunity  could 
not  but  be  welcome  to  a  nature  which  was  implacable  in  enmity, 
and  which  always  preferred  the  tortuous  to  the  straight  path. 
He  published,  accordingly,  the  Narrative  of  the  Frenzy  of  John 
Dennis.  But  Pope  had  mistaken  his  powers.  He  was  a  great 
master  of  invective  and  sarcasm.  He  could  dissect  a  character 
in  terse  and  sonorous  couplets,  brilliant  with  antithesis  ;  but  of 
dramatic  talent  he  was  altogether  destitute.  If  he  had  written 
a  lampoon  on  Dennis  such  as  that  on  Atticus  or  that  on 
Sporus,  the  old  grumbler  would  have  been  crushed.  But  Pope 
writing  dialogue  resembled  —  to  borrow  Horace's  imagery  and 
his  own  —  a  wolf  which,  instead  of  biting,  should  take  to 
kicking,  or  a  monkey  which  should  try  to  sting.  The  Narrative 
is  utterly  contemptible.  Of  argument  there  is  not  even  the 
show ;  and  the  jests  are  such  as,  if  they  were  introduced  into 
a  farce,  would  call  forth  the  hisses  of  the  shilling  gallery. 
Dennis  raves  about  the  drama,  and  the  nurse  thinks  that  he 
is  calling  for  a  dram.  "There  is,"  he  cries,  "no  peripetia  in 
the  tragedy,  no  change  of  fortune,  no  change  at  all."  "  Pray. 


330  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

good  sir,  be  not  angry,"  says  the  old  woman ;  "  I  '11  fetch 
change."  This  is  not  exactly  the  pleasantry  of  Addison. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Addison  saw  through  this 
officious  zeal,  and  felt  himself  deeply  aggrieved  by  it.  So  foolish 
and  spiteful  a  pamphlet  could  do  him  no  good,  and,  if  he  were 
thought  to  have  any  hand  in  it,  must  do  him  harm.  Gifted 
with  incomparable  powers  of  ridicule,  he  had  never,  even  in 
self-defence,  used  those  powers  inhumanly  or  uncourteously ; 
and  he  was  not  disposed  to  let  others  make  his  fame  and  his 
interests  a  pretext  under  which  they  might  commit  outrages 
from  which  he  had  himself  constantly  abstained.  He  accord- 
ingly declared  that  he  had  no  concern  in  the  Narrative,  that 
he  disapproved  of  it,  and  that  if  he  answered  the  Remarks,  he 
would  answer  them  like  a  gentleman ;  and  he  took  care  to 
communicate  this  to  Dennis.  Pope  was  bitterly  mortified ;  and 
to  this  transaction  we  are  inclined  to  ascribe  the  hatred  with 
which  he  ever  after  regarded  Addison. 

In  September,  1713,  the  Guardian  ceased  to  appear.  Steele 
had  gone  mad  about  politics.  A  general  election  had  just 
taken  place  :  he  had  been  chosen  member  for  Stockbridge ; 
and  he  fully  expected  to  play  a  first  part  in  Parliament.  The 
immense  success  of  the  Tatler  and  Spectator  had  turned  his 
head.  He  had  been  the  editor  of  both  those  papers  and  was 
not  aware  how  entirely  they  owed  their  influence  and  popularity 
to  the  genius  of  his  friend.  His  spirits,  always  violent,  were 
now  excited  by  vanity,  ambition,  and  faction,  to  such  a  pitch 
that  he  every  day  committed  some  offence  against  good  sense 
and  good  taste.  All  the  discreet  and  moderate  members  of  his 
own  party  regretted  and  condemned  his  folly.  "  I  am  in  a 
thousand  troubles,"  Addison  wrote,  "  about  poor  Dick,  and 
wish  that  his  zeal  for  the  public  may  not  be  ruinous  to  himself. 
But  he  has  sent  me  word  that  he  is  determined  to  go  on,  and 
that  any  advice  I  may  give  him  in  this  particular  will  have  no 
weight  with  him." 

Steele  set  up  a  political  paper  called  the  Englishman,  which, 
as  it  was  not  supported  by  contributions  from  Addison, 


ADDISON  331 

completely  failed.  By  this  work,  by  some  other  writings  of  the 
same  kind,  and  by  the  airs  which  he  gave  himself  at  the  first 
meeting  of  the  new  Parliament,  he  made  the  Tories  so  angry 
that  they  determined  to  expel  him.  The  Whigs  stood  by  him 
gallantly,  but  were  unable  to  save  him.  The  vote  of  expulsion 
was  regarded  by  all  dispassionate  men  as  a  tyrannical  exercise 
of  the  power  of  the  majority.  But  Steele's  violence  and  folly, 
though  they  by  no  means  justified  the  steps  which  his  enemies 
took,  had  completely  disgusted  his  friends ;  nor  did  he  ever 
regain  the  place  which  he  had  held  in  the  public  estimation. 

Addison  about  this  time  conceived  the  design  of  adding  an 
eighth  volume  to  the  Spectator.  In  June,  1714,  the  first  number 
of  the  new  series  appeared,  and  during  about  six  months  three 
papers  were  published  weekly.  Nothing  can  be  more  striking 
than  the  contrast  between  the  Englishman  and  the  eighth 
volume  of  the  Spectator,  between  Steele  without  Addison  and 
Addison  without  Steele.  The  Englishman  is  forgotten  ;  the 
eighth  volume  of  the  Spectator  contains,  perhaps,  the  finest 
essays,  both  serious  and  playful,  in  the  English  language. 

Before  this  volume  was  completed,  the  death  of  Anne 
produced  an  entire  change  in  the  administration  of  public 
affairs.  The  blow  fell  suddenly.  It  found  the  Tory  party 
distracted  by  internal  feuds,  and  unprepared  for  any  great 
effort.  Harley  had  just  been  disgraced.  Bolingbroke,  it  was 
supposed,  would  be  the  chief  Minister.  But  the  Queen  was 
on  her  death-bed  before  the  white  staff  had  been  given,  and 
her  last  public  act  was  to  deliver  it  with  a  feeble  hand  to  the 
Duke  of  Shrewsbury.  The  emergency  produced  a  coalition 
between  all  sections  of  public  men  who  were  attached  to  the 
Protestant  succession.  George  the  First  was  proclaimed  with- 
out opposition.  A  Council,  in  which  the  leading  Whigs  had 
seats,  took  the  direction  of  affairs  till  the  new  King  should 
arrive.  The  first  act  of  the  Lords  Justices  was  to  appoint 
Addison  their  secretary. 

There  is  an  idle  tradition  that  he  was  directed  to  prepare  a 
letter  to  the  King,  that  he  could  not  satisfy  himself  as  to  the 


332  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

style  of  this  composition,  and  that  the  Lords  Justices  called  in 
a  clerk  who  at  once  did  what  was  wanted.  It  is  not  strange 
that  a  story  so  flattering  to  mediocrity  should  be  popular ;  and 
we  are  sorry  to  deprive  dunces  of  their  consolation.  But  the 
truth  must  be  told.  It  was  well  observed  by  Sir  James  Mack- 
intosh, whose  knowledge  of  these  times  was  unequalled,  that 
Addison  never,  in  any  official  document,  affected  wit  or  elo- 
quence, and  that  his  despatches  are,  without  exception,  remark- 
able for  unpretending  simplicity.  Everybody  who  knows  with 
what  ease  Addison's  finest  essays  were  produced  must  be  con- 
vinced that,  if  well-turned  phrases  had  been  wanted,  he  would 
have  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  them.  We  are,  however, 
inclined  to  believe,  that  the  story  is  not  absolutely  without  a 
foundation.  It  may  well  be  that  Addison  did  not  know,  till  he 
had  consulted  experienced  clerks  who  remembered  the  times 
when  William  the  Third  was  absent  on  the  Continent,  in  what 
form  a  letter  from  the  Council  of  Regency  to  the  King  ought 
to  be  drawn.  We  think  it  very  likely  that  the  ablest  states- 
men of  our  time  —  Lord  John  Russell,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  Lord 
Palmerston,  for  example  —  would,  in  similar  circumstances,  be 
found  quite  as  ignorant.  Every  office  has  some  little  mysteries 
which  the  dullest  man  may  learn  with  a  little  attention,  and 
which  the  greatest  man  cannot  possibly  know  by  intuition. 
One  paper  must  be  signed  by  the  chief  of  the  department ; 
another  by  his  deputy ;  to  a  third  the  royal  sign  manual  is 
necessary.  One  communication  is  to  be  registered,  and  another 
is  not.  One  sentence  must  be  in  black  ink  and  another  in 
red  ink.  If  the  ablest  Secretary  for  Ireland  were  moved  to 
the  India  Board,  if  the  ablest  President  of  the  India  Board 
were  moved  to  the  War  Office,  he  would  require  instruction 
on  points  like  these  ;  and  we  do  not  doubt  that  Addison  re- 
quired such  instruction  when  he  became,  for  the  first  time, 
Secretary  to  the  Lords  Justices. 

George  the  First  took  possession  of  his  kingdom  without 
opposition.  A  new  Ministry  was  formed,  and  a  new  Parliament 
favourable  to  the  Whigs  chosen.  Sunderland  was  appointed 


ADDISON  333 

Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland  ;  and  Addison  again  went  to  Dublin 
as  Chief  Secretary. 

At  Dublin  Swift  resided ;  and  there  was  much  speculation 
about  the  way  in  which  the  Dean  and  the  Secretary  would 
behave  towards  each  other.  The  relations  which  existed 
between  these  remarkable  men  form  an  interesting  and  pleas- 
ing portion  of  literary  history.  They  had  early  attached  them- 
selves to  the  same  political  party  and  to  the  same  patrons. 
While  Anne's  Whig  Ministry  was  in  power,  the  visits  of  Swift 
to  London  and  the  official  residence  of  Addison  in  Ireland  had 
given  them  opportunities  of  knowing  each  other.  They  were 
the  two  shrewdest  observers  of  their  age.  But  their  observa- 
tions on  each  other  had  led  them  to  favourable  conclusions. 
Swift  did  full  justice  to  the  rare  powers  of  conversation  which 
were  latent  under  the  bashful  deportment  of  Addison.  Addi- 
son, on  the  other  hand,  discerned  much  good-nature  under  the 
severe  look  and  manner  of  Swift ;  and,  indeed,  the  Swift  of 
1708  and  the  Swift  of  1738  were  two  very  different  men. 

But  the  paths  of  the  two  friends  diverged  widely.  The  Whig 
statesmen  loaded  Addison  with  solid  benefits.  They  praised 
Swift,  asked  him  to  dinner,  and  did  nothing  more  for  him. 
His  profession  laid  them  under  a  difficulty.  In  the  State  they 
could  not  promote  him ;  and  they  had  reason  to  fear  that,  by 
bestowing  preferment  in  the  Church  on  the  author  of  the  Tale 
of  a  Tttb,  they  might  give  scandal  to  the  public,  which  had  no 
high  opinion  of  their  orthodoxy.  He  did  not  make  fair  allow- 
ance for  the  difficulties  which  prevented  Halifax  and  Somers 
from  serving  him,  thought  himself  an  ill-used  man,  sacrificed 
honour  and  consistency  to  revenge,  joined  the  Tories,  and 
became  their  most  formidable  champion.  He  soon  found, 
however,  that  his  old  friends  were  less  to  blame  than  he  had 
supposed.  The  dislike  with  which  the  Queen  and  the  heads  of 
the  Church  regarded  him  was  insurmountable  ;  and  it  was  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  obtained  an  ecclesiastical  dignity 
of  no  great  value,  on  condition  of  fixing  his  residence  in  a 
country  which  he  detested. 


334  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Difference  of  political  opinion  had  produced,  not  indeed  a 
quarrel,  but  a  coolness  between  Swift  and  Addison.  They  at 
length  ceased  altogether  to  see  each  other.  Yet  there  was 
between  them  a  tacit  compact  like  that  between  the  hereditary 
guests  in  the  Iliad: 


8'  dAAiyAw  aA€u>//,€0a  Kat  81'  6/u'Aorr 
IIoAAot  fjikv  yap  ffJiol  Tpaies  KActTot'  T'  CT 
KretWtv,   ov  *ce  $eos  ye  iroprf  /cat  Trocrcrl 
IIoAAot  8'  av  o-ot  'Amatol  evatpe/ncv,  6v  KC  Suviyat. 

It  is  not  strange  that  Addison,  who  calumniated  and  insulted 
nobody,  should  not  have  calumniated  or  insulted  Swift.  But 
it  is  remarkable  that  Swift,  to  whom  neither  genius  nor  virtue 
was  sacred,  and  who  generally  seemed  to  find,  like  most  other 
renegades,  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  attacking  old  friends,  should 
have  shown  so  much  respect  and  tenderness  to  Addison. 

Fortune  had  now  changed.  The  accession  of  the  House  of 
Hanover  had  secured  in  England  the  liberties  of  the  people, 
and  in  Ireland  the  dominion  of  the  Protestant  caste.  To  that 
caste  Swift  was  more  odious  than  any  other  man.  He  was 
hooted  and  even  pelted  in  the  streets  of  Dublin  ;  and  could 
not  venture  to  ride  along  the  strand  for  his  health  without  the 
attendance  of  armed  servants.  Many  whom  he  had  formerly 
served  now  libelled  and  insulted  him.  At  this  time  Addison 
arrived.  He  had  been  advised  not  to  show  the  smallest  civility 
to  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's.  He  had  answered,  with  admirable 
spirit,  that  it  might  be  necessary  for  men  whose  fidelity  to  their 
party  was  suspected  to  hold  no  intercourse  with  political  oppo- 
nents ;  but  that  one  who  had  been  a  steady  Whig  in  the  worst 
times  might  venture  when  the  good  cause  was  triumphant  to 
shake  hands  with  an  old  friend  who  was  one  of  the  vanquished 
Tories.  His  kindness  was  soothing  to  the  proud  and  cruelly 
wounded  spirit  of  Swift;  and  the  two  great  satirists  resumed 
their  habits  of  friendly  intercourse. 

Those  associates  of  Addison  whose  political  opinions  agreed 
with  his  shared  his  good  fortune.  He  took  Tickell  with  him  to 


ADDISON  335 

Ireland.  He  procured  for  Budgell  a  lucrative  place  in  the  same 
kingdom.  Ambrose  Philips  was  provided  for  in  England. 
Steele  had  injured  himself  so  much  by  his  eccentricity  and 
perverseness  that  he  obtained  but  a  very  small  part  of  what  he 
thought  his  due.  He  was,  however,  knighted ;  he  had  a  place 
in  the  household ;  and  he  subsequently  received  other  marks 
of  favour  from  the  Court. 

Addison  did  not  remain  long  in  Ireland.  In  1715  he  quitted 
his  secretaryship  for  a  seat  at  the  Board  of  Trade.  In  the 
same  year  his  comedy  of  the  Drummer  was  brought  on  the 
stage.  The  name  of  the  author  was  not  announced  ;  the  piece 
was  coldly  received ;  and  some  critics  had  expressed  a  doubt 
whether  it  were  really  Addison's.  To  us  the  evidence,  both 
external  and  internal,  seems  decisive.  It  is  not  in  Addison's 
best  manner ;  but  it  contains  numerous  passages  which  no 
other  writer  known  to  us  could  have  produced.  It  was  again 
performed  after  Addison's  death,  and,  being  known  to  be  his, 
was  loudly  applauded. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  year  1715,  while  the  Rebellion 
was  still  raging  in  Scotland,  Addison  published  the  first  num- 
ber of  a  paper  called  the  Freeholder.  Among  his  political 
works  the  Freeholder  is  entitled  to  the  first  place.  Even  in  the 
Spectator  there  are  few  serious  papers  nobler  than  the  charac- 
ter of  his  friend  Lord  Somers,  and  certainly  no  satirical  papers 
superior  to  those  in  which  the  Tory  fox-hunter  is  introduced. 
This  character  is  the  original  of  Squire  Western,  and  is  drawn 
with  all  Fielding's  force,  and  with  a  delicacy  of  which  Fielding 
was  altogether  destitute.  As  none  of  Addison's  works  exhibits 
stronger  marks  of  his  genius  than  the  Freeholder,  so  none  does 
more  honour  to  his  moral  character.  It  is  difficult  to  extol  too 
highly  the  candour  and  humanity  of  a  political  writer  whom 
even  the  excitement  of  civil  war  cannot  hurry  into  unseemly 
violence.  Oxford,  it  is  well  known,  was  then  the  stronghold 
of  Toryism.  The  High  Street  had  been  repeatedly  lined  with 
bayonets  in  order  to  keep  down  the  disaffected  gownsmen ; 
and  traitors  pursued  by  the  messengers  of  the  Government 


336  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

had  been  concealed  in  the  garrets  of  several  colleges.  Yet  the 
admonition  which,  even  under  such  circumstances,  Addison 
addressed  to  the  University,  is  singularly  gentle,  respectful,  and 
even  affectionate.  Indeed,  he  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart 
to  deal  harshly  even  with  imaginary  persons.  His  fox-hunter, 
though  ignorant,  stupid,  and  violent,  is  at  heart  a  good  fellow, 
and  is  at  last  reclaimed  by  the  clemency  of  the  King.  Steele 
was  dissatisfied  with  his  friend's  moderation,  and,  though  he 
acknowledged  that  the  Freeholder  was  excellently  written,  com- 
plained that  the  Ministry  played  on  a  lute  when  it  was  necessary 
to  blow  the  trumpet.  He  accordingly  determined  to  execute  a 
flourish  after  his  own  fashion,  and  tried  to  rouse  the  public 
spirit  of  the  nation  by  means  of  a  paper  called  the  Town  Talk, 
which  is  now  as  utterly  forgotten  as  his  Englishman,  as  his 
Crisis,  as  his  Letter  to  the  Bailiff  of  Stockbridge,  as  his  Reader — 
in  short,  as  everything  that  he  wrote  without  the  help  of  Addison. 

In  the  same  year  in  which  the  Drummer  was  acted,  and  in 
which  the  first  numbers  of  the  Freeholder  appeared,  the  es- 
trangement of  Pope  and  Addison  became  complete.  Addison 
had  from  the  first  seen  that  Pope  was  false  and  malevolent. 
Pope  had  discovered  that  Addison  was  jealous.  The  discovery 
was  made  in  a  strange  manner.  Pope  had  written  the  Rape  of 
the  Lock  in  two  cantos  without  supernatural  machinery.  These 
two  cantos  had  been  loudly  applauded,  and  by  none  more 
loudly  than  by  Addison.  Then  Pope  thought  of  the  Sylphs 
and  Gnomes — Ariel,  Momentilla,  Crispissa,  and  Umbriel — and 
resolved  to  interweave  the  Rosicrucian  mythology  with  the  orig- 
inal fabric.  He  asked  Addison's  advice.  Addison  said  that  the 
poem  as  it  stood  was  a  delicious  little  thing,  and  entreated 
Pope  not  to  run  the  risk  of  marring  what  was  so  excellent  in 
trying  to  mend  it.  Pope  afterwards  declared  that  this  insidious 
counsel  first  opened  his  eyes  to  the  baseness  of  him  who  gave  it. 

Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Pope's  plan  was  most  ingen- 
ious, and  that  he  afterwards  executed  it  with  great  skill  and 
success.  But  does  it  necessarily  follow  that  Addison's  advice 
was  bad  ?  And  if  Addison's  advice  was  bad,  does  it  necessarily 


ADDISON  337 

follow  that  it  was  given  from  bad  motives  ?  If  a  friend  were 
to  ask  us  whether  we  would  advise  him  to  risk  his  all  in  a 
lottery  of  which  the  chances  were  ten  to  one  against  him,  we 
should  do  our  best  to  dissuade  him  from  running  such  a  risk. 
Even  if  he  were  so  lucky  as  to  get  the  thirty  thousand  pound 
prize,  we  should  not  admit  that  we  had  counselled  him  ill ; 
and  we  should  certainly  think  it  the  height  of  injustice  in  him 
to  accuse  us  of  having  been  actuated  by  malice.  We  think 
Addison's  advice  good  advice.  It  rested  on  a  sound  principle, 
the  result  of  long  and  wide  experience.  The  general  rule  un- 
doubtedly is  that  when  a  successful  work  of  imagination  has 
been  produced,  it  should  not  be  recast.  We  cannot  at  this 
moment  call  to  mind  a  single  instance  in  which  this  rule  has 
been  transgressed  with  happy  effect,  except  the  instance  of  the 
Rape  of  the  Lock.  Tasso  recast  his  Jerusalem.  Akenside  recast 
his  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination  and  his  Epistle  to  Curio. 
Pope  himself  —  emboldened  no  doubt  by  the  success  with  which 
he  had  expanded  and  remodelled  the  Rape  of  the  Lock  —  made 
the  same  experiment  on  the  Dunciad.  All  these  attempts 
failed.  Who  was  to  foresee  that  Pope  would,  once  in  his  life, 
be  able  to  do  what  he  could  not  himself  do  twice,  and  what 
nobody  else  has  ever  done  ? 

Addison's  advice  was  good.  But  had  it  been  bad,  why  should 
we  pronounce  it  dishonest  ?  Scott  tells  us  that  one  of  his  best 
friends  predicted  the  failure  of  Waverley.  Herder  adjured 
Goethe  not  to  take  so  unpromising  a  subject  as  Faust.  Hume 
tried  to  dissuade  Robertson  from  writing  the  History  of  Charles 
the  Fifth.  Nay,  Pope  himself  was  one  of  those  who  prophe- 
sied that  Cato  would  never  succeed  on  the  stage,  and  advised 
Addison  to  print  it  without  risking  a  representation.  But  Scott, 
Goethe,  Robertson,  Addison,  had  the  good  sense  and  gener- 
osity to  give  their  advisers  credit  for  the  best  intentions.  Pope's 
heart  was  not  of  the  same  kind  with  theirs. 

In  1715,  while  he  was  engaged  in  translating  the  Iliad,  he 
met  Addison  at  a  coffee-house.  Philips  and  Budgell  were 
there ;  but  their  sovereign  got  rid  of  them,  and  asked  Pope  to 


338  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

dine  with  him  alone.  After  dinner  Addison  said  that  he  lay 
under  a  difficulty  which  he  wished  to  explain.  "  Tickell,"  he 
said,  "  translated  some  time  ago  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad.  I 
have  promised  to  look  it  over  and  correct  it.  I  cannot  there- 
fore ask  to  see  yours  ;  for  that  would  be  double-dealing."  Pope 
made  a  civil  reply,  and  begged  that  his  second  book  might  have 
the  advantage  of  Addison's  revision.  Addison  readily  agreed, 
looked  over  the  second  book,  and  sent  it  back  with  warm 
commendations. 

Tickell's  version  of  the  first  book  appeared  soon  after  this 
conversation.  In  the  preface  all  rivalry  was  earnestly  disclaimed. 
Tickell  declared  that  he  should  not  go  on  with  the  Iliad.  That 
enterprise  he  should  leave  to  powers  which  he  admitted  to  be 
superior  to  his  own.  His  only  view,  he  said,  in  publishing  this 
specimen  was  to  bespeak  the  favour  of  the  public  to  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Odyssey  in  which  he  had  made  some  progress. 

Addison,  and  Addison's  devoted  followers,  pronounced  both 
the  versions  good,  but  maintained  that  Tickell's  had  more  of 
the  original.  The  town  gave  a  decided  preference  to  Pope's. 
We  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to  settle  such  a  question  of 
precedence.  Neither  of  the  rivals  can  be  said  to  have  trans- 
lated the  Iliad,  unless,  indeed,  the  word  translation  be  used 
in  the  sense  which  it  bears  in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 
When  Bottom  makes  his  appearance  with  an  ass's  head  in- 
stead of  his  own,  Peter  Quince  exclaims,  "  Bless  thee !  Bottom, 
bless  thee  !  thou  art  translated."  In  this  sense,  undoubtedly,  the 
readers  of  either  Pope  or  Tickell  may  very  properly  exclaim, 
"  Bless  thee !  Homer,  thou  art  translated  indeed." 

Our  readers  will,  we  hope,  agree  with  us  in  thinking  that 
no  man  in  Addison's  situation  could  have  acted  more  fairly 
and  kindly,  both  towards  Pope  and  towards  Tickell,  than  he 
appears  to  have  done.  But  an  odious  suspicion  had  sprung 
up  in  the  mind  of  Pope.  He  fancied,  and  he  soon  firmly 
believed,  that  there  was  a  deep  conspiracy  against  his  fame 
and  his  fortunes.  The  work  on  which  he  had  staked  his 
reputation  was  to  be  depreciated.  The  subscription  on  which 


ADDISON  339 

rested  his  hopes  of  a  competence  was  to  be  defeated.  With 
this  view  Addison  had  made  a  rival  translation  ;  Tickell  had 
consented  to  father  it ;  and  the  wits  of  Button's  had  united 
to  puff  it. 

Is  there  any  external  evidence  to  support  this  grave  accusa- 
tion ?  The  answer  is  short.  There  is  absolutely  none. 

Was  there  any  internal  evidence  which  proved  Addison  to 
be  the  author  of  this  version  ?  Was  it  a  work  which  Tickell 
was  incapable  of  producing  ?  Surely  not.  Tickell  was  a 
Fellow  of  a  College  at  Oxford,  and  must  be  supposed  to 
have  been  able  to  construe  the  Iliad  \  and  he  was  a  better 
versifier  than  his  friend.  We  are  not  aware  that  Pope  pre- 
tended to  have  discovered  any  turns  of  expression  peculiar 
to  Addison.  Had  such  turns  of  expression  been  discovered, 
they  would  be  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  supposing  Addison 
to  have  corrected  his  friend's  lines,  as  he  owned  that  he 
had  done. 

Is  there  anything  in  the  character  of  the  accused  persons 
which  makes  the  accusation  probable  ?  We  answer  confidently 
—  nothing.  Tickell  was  long  after  this  time  described  by 
Pope  himself  as  a  very  fair  and  worthy  man.  Addison  had 
been  during  many  years  before  the  public.  Literary  rivals, 
political  opponents,  had  kept  their  eyes  on  him.  But  neither 
envy  nor  faction,  in  its  utmost  rage,  had  ever  imputed  to 
him  a  single  deviation  from  the  laws  of  honour  and  of  social 
morality.  Had  he  been  indeed  a  man  meanly  jealous  of  fame, 
and  capable  of  stooping  to  base  and  wicked  arts  for  the  purpose 
of  injuring  his  competitors,  would  his  vices  have  remained 
latent  so  long  ?  He  was  a  writer  of  tragedy :  had  he  ever 
injured  Rowe  ?  He  was  a  writer  of  comedy :  had  he  not 
done  ample  justice  to  Congreve,  and  given  valuable  help  to 
Steele  ?  He  was  a  pamphleteer :  have  not  his  good  nature 
and  generosity  been  acknowledged  by  Swift,  his  rival  in  fame 
and  his  adversary  in  politics  ? 

That  Tickell  should  have  been  guilty  of  a  villany  seems  to 
us  highly  improbable.  That  Addison  should  have  been  guilty 


340  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

of  a  villany  seems  to  us  highly  improbable.  But  that  these 
two  men  should  have  conspired  together  to  commit  a  villany 
seems  to  us  improbable  in  a  tenfold  degree.  All  that  is 
known  to  us  of  their  intercourse  tends  to  prove  that  it  was 
not  the  intercourse  of  two  accomplices  in  crime.  These  are 
some  of  the  lines  in  which  Tickell  poured  forth  his  sorrow 
over  the  coffin  of  Addison : 

Or  dost  thou  warn  poor  mortals  left  behind, 
A  task  well  suited  to  thy  gentle  mind  ?    . 
Oh,  if  sometimes  thy  spotless  form  descend, 
To  me  thine  aid,  thou  guardian  genius,  lend. 
When  rage  misguides  me,  or  when  fear  alarms, 
When  pain  distresses,  or  when  pleasure  charms, 
In  silent  whisperings  purer  thoughts  impart, 
And  turn  from  ill  a  frail  and  feeble  heart ; 
Lead  through  the  paths  thy  virtue  trod  before, 
Till  bliss  shall  join,  nor  death  can  part  us  more. 

In  what  words,  we  should  like  to  know,  did  this  guardian 
genius  invite  his  pupil  to  join  in  a  plan  such  as  the  Editor  of 
the  Satirist  would  hardly  dare  to  propose  to  the  Editor  of 
the  Age} 

We  do  not  accuse  Pope  of  bringing  an  accusation  which  he 
knew  to  be  false.  We  have  not  the  smallest  doubt  that  he 
believed  it  to  be  true ;  and  the  evidence  on  which  he  believed 
it  he  found  in  his  own  bad  heart.  His  own  life  was  one  long 
series  of  tricks,  as  mean  and  as  malicious  as  that  of  which  he 
suspected  Addison  and  Tickell.  He  was  all  stiletto  and  mask. 
To  injure,  to  insult,  and  to  save  himself  from  the  conse- 
quences of  injury  and  insult  by  lying  and  equivocating,  was 
the  habit  of  his  life.  He  published  a  lampoon  on  the  Duke  of 
Chandos ;  he  was  taxed  with  it,  and  he  lied  and  equivocated. 
He  published  a  lampoon  on  Aaron  Hill ;  he  was  taxed  with 
it,  and  he  lied  and  equivocated.  He  published  a  still  fouler 
lampoon  on  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague ;  he  was  taxed 
with  it,  and  he  lied  with  more  than  usual  effrontery  and 
vehemence.  He  puffed  himself  and  abused  his  enemies  under 
feigned  names.  He  robbed  himself  of  his  own  letters,  and 


ADDISON  341 

then  raised  the  hue  and  cry  after  them.  Besides  his  frauds 
of  malignity,  of  fear,  of  interest,  and  of  vanity,  there  were 
frauds  which  he  seems  to  have  committed  from  love  of  fraud 
alone.  He  had  a  habit  of  stratagem,  a  pleasure  in  outwitting 
all  who  came  near  him.  Whatever  his  object  might  be,  the 
indirect  road  to  it  was  that  whjch  he  preferred.  For  Boling- 
broke  Pope  undoubtedly  felt  as  much  love  and  veneration  as 
it  was  in  his  nature  to  feel  for  any  human  being.  Yet  Pope 
was  scarcely  dead  when  it  was  discovered  that,  from  no  motive 
except  the  mere  love  of  artifice,  he  had  been  guilty  of  an  act 
of  gross  perfidy  to  Bolingbroke. 

Nothing  was  more  natural  than  that  such  a  man  as  this 
should  attribute  to  others  that  which  he  felt  within  himself. 
A  plain,  probable,  coherent  explanation  is  frankly  given  to 
him.  He  is  certain  that  it  is  all  a  romance.  A  line  of  conduct 
scrupulously  fair,  and  even  friendly,  is  pursued  towards  him. 
He  is  convinced  that  it  is  merely  a  cover  for  a  vile  intrigue 
by  which  he  is  to  be  disgraced  and  ruined.  It  is  vain  to  ask 
him  for  proofs.  He  has  none,  and  wants  none,  except  those 
which  he  carries  in  his  own  bosom. 

Whether  Pope's  malignity  at  length  provoked  Addison  to 
retaliate  for  the  first  and  last  time  cannot  now  be  known  with 
certainty.  We  have  only  Pope's  story,  which  runs  thus :  A 
pamphlet  appeared  containing  some  reflections  which  stung 
Pope  to  the  quick.  What  those  reflections  were,  and  whether 
they  were  reflections  of  which  he  had  a  right  to  complain,  we 
have  now  no  means  of  deciding.  The  Earl  of  Warwick,  a 
foolish  and  vicious  lad,  who  regarded  Addison  with  the  feel- 
ings with  which  such  lads  generally  regard  their  best  friends, 
told  Pope,  truly  or  falsely,  that  this  pamphlet  had  been  written 
by  Addison 's  direction.  When  we  consider  what  a  tendency 
stories  have  to  grow  in  passing  even  from  one  honest  man  to 
another  honest  man,  and  when  we  consider  that  to  the  name 
of  honest  man  neither  Pope  nor  the  Earl  of  Warwick  had  a 
claim,  we  are  not  disposed  to  attach  much  importance  to  this 
anecdote. 


342  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  Pope  was  furious.  He  had 
already  sketched  the  character  of  Atticus  in  prose.  In  his 
anger  he  turned  this  prose  into  the  brilliant  and  energetic  lines 
which  everybody  knows  by  heart,  or  ought  to  know  by  heart, 
and  sent  them  to  Addison.  One  charge  which  Pope  has 
enforced  with  great  skill  is  probably  not  without  foundation. 
Addison  was,  we  are  inclined  to  believe,  too  fond  of  presiding 
over  a  circle  of  humble  friends.  Of  the  other  imputations 
which  these  famous  lines  are  intended  to  convey,  scarcely  one 
has  ever  been  proved  to  be  just,  and  some  are  certainly  false. 
That  Addison  was  not  in  the  habit  of  "  damning  with  faint 
praise "  appears  from  innumerable  passages  in  his  writings, 
and  from  none  more  than  from  those  in  which  he  mentions 
Pope.  And  it  is  not  merely  unjust,  but  ridiculous,  to  describe 
a  man  who  made  the  fortune  of  almost  every  one  of  his 
intimate  friends  as  "so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged." 

That  Addison  felt  the  sting  of  Pope's  satire  keenly  we 
cannot  doubt.  That  he  was  conscious  of  one  of  the  weak- 
nesses with  which  he  was  reproached  is  highly  probable.  But 
his  heart,  we  firmly  believe,  acquitted  him  of  the  gravest  part 
of  the  accusation.  He  acted  like  himself.  As  a  satirist  he 
was,  at  his  own  weapons,  more  than  Pope's  match ;  and  he 
would  have  been  at  no  loss  for  topics.  A  distorted  and  diseased 
body,  tenanted  by  a  yet  more  distorted  and  diseased  mind ; 
spite  and  envy  thinly  disguised  by  sentiments  as  benevolent 
and  noble  as  those  which  Sir  Peter  Teazle  admired  in  Mr. 
Joseph  Surface ;  a  feeble  sickly  licentiousness ;  an  odious  love 
of  filthy  and  noisome  images  —  these  were  things  which  a  genius 
less  powerful  than  that  to  which  we  owe  the  Spectator  could 
easily  have  held  up  to  the  mirth  and  hatred  of  mankind. 
Addison  had,  moreover,  at  his  command,  other  means  of 
vengeance  which  a  bad  man  would  not  have  scrupled  to  use. 
He  was  powerful  in  the  State.  Pope  was  a  Catholic;  and  in 
those  times  a  Minister  would  have  found  it  easy  to  harass  the 
most  innocent  Catholic  by  innumerable  petty  vexations.  Pope, 
near  twenty  years  later,  said  that  "  through  the  lenity  of  the 


ADDISON  343 

Government  alone  he  could  live  with  comfort."  "  Consider," 
he  exclaimed,  "  the  injury  that  a  man  of  high  rank  and  credit 
may  do  to  a  private  person,  under  penal  laws  and  many  other 
disadvantages."  It  is  pleasing  to  reflect  that  the  only  revenge 
which  Addison  took  was  to  insert  in  the  Freeholder  a  warm 
encomium  on  the  translation  of  the  Iliad,  and  to  exhort  all 
lovers  of  learning  to  put  down  their  names  as  subscribers. 
There  could  be  no  doubt,  he  said,  from  the  specimens  already 
published,  that  the  masterly  hand  of  Pope  would  do  as  much 
for  Homer  as  Dryden  had  done  for  Virgil.  From  that  time 
to  the  end  of  his  life  he  always  treated  Pope,  by  Pope's  own 
acknowledgment,  with  justice.  Friendship  was,  of  course,  at 
an  end. 

One  reason  which  induced  the  Earl  of  Warwick  to  play  the 
ignominious  part  of  talebearer  on  this  occasion  may  have  been 
his  dislike  of  the  marriage  which  was  about  to  take  place  be- 
tween his  mother  and  Addison.  The  Countess  Dowager,  a 
daughter  of  the  old  and  honourable  family  of  the  Middletons 
of  Chirk  —  a  family  which  in  any  country  but  ours  would  be 
called  noble  —  resided  at  Holland  House.  Addison  had,  during 
some  years,  occupied  at  Chelsea  a  small  dwelling,  once  the 
abode  of  Nell  Gwynn.  Chelsea  is  now  a  district  of  London, 
and  Holland  House  may  be  called  a  town  residence.  But  in 
the  days  of  Anne  and  George  the  First,  milkmaids  and  sports- 
men wandered  between  green  hedges  and  over  fields  bright 
with  daisies  from  Kensington  almost  to  the  shore  of  the 
Thames.  Addison  and  Lady  Warwick  were  country  neigh- 
bours, and  became  intimate  friends.  The  great  wit  and  scholar 
tried  to  allure  the  young  Lord  from  the  fashionable  amuse- 
ments of  beating  watchmen,  breaking  windows,  and  rolling 
women  in  hogsheads  down  Holborn  Hill,  to  the  study  of 
letters  and  the  practice  of  virtue.  These  well-meant  exertions 
did  little  good,  however,  either  to  the  disciple  or  to  the  master. 
Lord  Warwick  grew  up  a  rake ;  and  Addison  fell  in  love.  The 
mature  beauty  of  the  Countess  has  been  celebrated  by  poets 
in  language  which,  after  a  very  large  allowance  has  been  made 


344  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

for  flattery,  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  she  was  a  fine 
woman ;  and  her  rank  doubtless  heightened  her  attractions. 
The  courtship  was  long.  The  hopes  of  the  lover  appear  to 
have  risen  and  fallen  with  the  fortunes  of  his  party.  His 
attachment  was  at  length  a  matter  of  such  notoriety  that,  when 
he  visited  Ireland  for  the  last  time,  Rowe  addressed  some  con- 
solatory verses  to  the  Chloe  of  Holland  House.  It  strikes  us 
as  a  little  strange  that  in  these  verses  Addison  should  be 
called  Lycidas,  a  name  of  singularly  evil  omen  for  a  swain 
just  about  to  cross  St.  George's  Channel. 

At  length  Chloe  capitulated.  Addison  was  indeed  able  to 
treat  with  her  on  equal  terms.  He  had  reason  to  expect  pre- 
ferment even  higher  than  that  which  he  had  attained.  He 
had  inherited  the  fortune  of  a  brother  who  died  Governor  of 
Madras.  He  had  purchased  an  estate  in  Warwickshire,  and 
had  been  welcomed  to  his  domain  in  very  tolerable  verse  by 
one  of  the  neighbouring  squires  —  the  poetical  fox-hunter, 
William  Somerville.  In  August,  1716,  the  newspapers  an- 
nounced that  Joseph  Addison,  Esquire,  famous  for  many 
excellent  works  both  in  verse  and  prose,  had  espoused  the 
Countess  Dowager  of  Warwick. 

He  now  fixed  his  abode  at  Holland  House  —  a  house  which 
can  boast  of  a  greater  number  of  inmates  distinguished  in 
political  and  literary  history  than  any  other  private  dwelling 
in  England.  His  portrait  still  hangs  there.  The  features  are 
pleasing ;  the  complexion  is  remarkably  fair ;  but  in  the 
expression,  we  trace  rather  the  gentleness  of  his  disposition 
than  the  force  and  keenness  of  his  intellect. 

Not  long  after  his  marriage  he  reached  the  height  of  civil 
greatness.  The  Whig  Government  had,  during  some  time, 
been  torn  by  internal  dissensions.  Lord  Townshend  led 'one 
section  of  the  Cabinet,  Lord  Sunderland  the  other.  At  length, 
in  the  spring  of  i/i/,  Sunderland  triumphed.  Townshend 
retired  from  office,  and  was  accompanied  by  Walpole  and 
Cowper.  Sunderland  proceeded  to  reconstruct  the  Ministry; 
and  Addison  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State.  It  is  certain 


ADDISON  345 

that  the  Seals  were  pressed  upon  him,  and  were  at  first  de- 
clined by  him.  Men  equally  versed  in  official  business  might 
easily  have  been  found ;  and  his  colleagues  knew  that  they 
could  not  expect  assistance  from  him  in  debate.  He  owed 
his  elevation  to  his  popularity,  to  his  stainless  probity,  and  to 
his  literary  fame. 

But  scarcely  had  Addison  entered  the  Cabinet  when  his 
health  began  to  fail.  From  one  serious  attack  he  recovered 
in  the  autumn ;  and  his  recovery  was  celebrated  in  Latin 
verses,  worthy  of  his  own  pen,  by  Vincent  Bourne,  who  was 
then  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  A  relapse  soon  took 
place ;  and  in  the  following  spring  Addison  was  prevented 
by  a  severe  asthma  from  discharging  the  duties  of  his  post. 
He  resigned  it,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  friend  Craggs,  a 
young  man  whose  natural  parts,  though  little  improved  by 
cultivation,  were  quick  and  showy,  whose  graceful  person  and 
winning  manners  had  made  him  generally  acceptable  in  society, 
and  who,  if  he  had  lived,  would  probably  have  been  the  most 
formidable  of  all  the  rivals  of  Walpole. 

As  yet  there  was  no  Joseph  Hume.  The  Ministers,  there- 
fore, were  able  to  bestow  on  Addison  a  retiring  pension  of 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  a  year.  In  what  form  this  pension 
was  given  we  are  not  told  by  the  biographers,  and  have  not 
time  to  inquire.  But  it  is  certain  that  Addison  did  not  vacate 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Rest  of  mind  and  body  seem  to  have  re-established  his 
health  ;  and  he  thanked  God  with  cheerful  piety  for  having 
set  him  free  both  from  his  office  and  from  his  asthma.  Many 
years  seemed  to  be  before  him,  and  he  meditated  many  works  — 
a  tragedy  on  the  death  of  Socrates,  a  translation  of  the  Psalms,  a 
treatise  on  the  evidences  of  Christianity.  Of  this  last  perform- 
ance a  part,  which  we  could  well  spare,  has  come  down  to  us. 

But  the  fatal  complaint  soon  returned,  and  gradually  pre- 
vailed against  all  the  resources  of  medicine.  It  is  melancholy 
to  think  that  the  last  months  of  such  a  life  should  have  been 
overclouded  both  by  domestic  and  by  political  vexations.  A 


346  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

tradition  which  began  early,  which  has  been  generally  received, 
and  to  which  we  have  nothing  to  oppose,  has  represented  his 
wife  as  an  arrogant  and  imperious  woman.  It  is  said  that,  till 
his  health  failed  him,  he  was  glad  to  escape  from  the  Countess 
Dowager  and  her  magnificent  dining-room,  blazing  with  the 
gilded  devices  of  the  House  of  Rich,  to  some  tavern  where  he 
could  enjoy  a  laugh,  a  talk  about  Virgil  and  Boileau,  and  a 
bottle  of  claret  with  the  friends  of  his  happier  days.  All  those 
friends,  however,  were  not  left  to  him.  Sir  Richard  Steele 
had  been  gradually  estranged  by  various  causes.  He  considered 
himself  as  one  who,  in  evil  times,  had  braved  martyrdom  for 
his  political  principles,  and  demanded,  when  the  Whig  party 
was  triumphant,  a  large  compensation  for  what  he  had  suffered 
when  it  was  militant.  The  Whig  leaders  took  a  very  different 
view  of  his  claims.  They  thought  that  he  had,  by  his  own 
petulance  and  folly,  brought  them  as  well  as  himself  into 
trouble,  and,  though  they  did  not  absolutely  neglect  him,  doled 
out  favours  to  him  with  a  sparing  hand.  It  was  natural  that  he 
should  be  angry  with  them,  and  especially  angry  with  Addison. 
But  what  above  all  seems  to  have  disturbed  Sir  Richard,  was 
the  elevation  of  Tickell,  who,  at  thirty,  was  made  by  Addison 
Under-Secretary  of  State ;  while  the  editor  of  the  Tatler  and 
Spectator,  the  author  of  the  Crisis,  and  member  for  Stock- 
bridge  who  had  been  persecuted  for  firm  adherence  to  the 
House  of  Hanover,  was,  at  near  fifty,  forced,  after  many  so- 
licitations and  complaints,  to  content  himself  with  a  share  in 
the  patent  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre.  Steele  himself  says,  in  his 
celebrated  letter  to  Congreve,  that  Addison,  by  his  preference 
of  Tickell,  "  incurred  the  warmest  resentment  of  other  gentle- 
men"; and  everything  seems  to  indicate  that,  of  those  resent- 
ful gentlemen,  Steele  was  himself  one. 

While  poor  Sir  Richard  was  brooding  over  what  he  consid- 
ered as  Addison's  unkindness,  a  new  cause  of  quarrel  arose. 
The  Whig  party,  already  divided  against  itself,  was  rent  by  a 
new  schism.  The  celebrated  Bill  for  limiting  the  number  of 
Peers  had  been  brought  in.  The  proud  Duke  of  Somerset, 


ADDISON  347 

first  in  rank  of  all  the  nobles  whose  religion  permitted  them 
to  sit  in  Parliament,  was  the  ostensible  author  of  the  measure. 
But  it  was  supported,  and  in  truth  devised,  by  the  Prime 
Minister. 

We  are  satisfied  that  the  bill  was  most  pernicious ;  and  we 
fear  that  the  motives  which  induced  Sunderland  to  frame  it 
were  not  honourable  to  him.  But  we  cannot  deny  that  it  was 
supported  by  many  of  the  best  and  wisest  men  of  that  age. 
Nor  was  this  strange.  The  royal  prerogative  had,  within  the 
memory  of  the  generation  then  in  the  vigour  of  life,  been  so 
grossly  abused  that  it  was  still  regarded  with  a  jealousy  which, 
when  the  peculiar  situation  of  the  House  of  Brunswick  is  con- 
sidered, may  perhaps  be  called  immoderate.  The  particular 
prerogative  of  creating  peers  had,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Whigs, 
been  grossly  abused  by  Queen  Anne's  last  Ministry ;  and  even 
the  Tories  admitted  that  her  Majesty,  in  swamping,  as  it  has 
since  been  called,  the  Upper  House,  had  done  what  only  an 
extreme  case  could  justify.  The  theory  of  the  English  consti- 
tution, according  to  many  high  authorities,  was  that  three 
independent  powers  —  the  sovereign,  the  nobility,  and  the 
commons  —  ought  constantly  to  act  as  checks  on  each  other. 
If  this  theory  were  sound,  it  seemed  to  follow  that  to  put  one 
of  these  powers  under  the  absolute  control  of  the  other  two 
was  absurd.  But  if  the  number  of  peers  were  unlimited,  it 
could  not  well  be  denied  that  the  Upper  House  was  under  the 
absolute  control  of  the  Crown  and  the  Commons,  and  was 
iridebted  only  to  their  moderation  for  any  power  which  it  might 
be  suffered  to  retain. 

Steele  took  part  with  the  Opposition,  Addison  with  the 
Ministers.  Steele,  in  a  paper  called  the  Plebeian,  vehemently 
attacked  the  bill.  Sunderland  called  for  help  on  Addison,  and 
Addison  obeyed  the  call.  In  a  paper  called  the  Old  Whig,  he 
answered,  and  indeed  refuted,  Steele's  arguments.  It  seems  to 
us  that  the  premises  of  both  the  controversialists  were  unsound  ; 
that  on  those  premises  Addison  reasoned  well  and  Steele  ill ; 
and  that  consequently  Addison  brought  out  a  false  conclusion 


348  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

while  Steele  blundered  upon  the  truth.  In  style,  in  wit,  and 
in  politeness,  Addison  maintained  his  superiority,  though  the 
Old  Whig  is  by  no  means  one  of  his  happiest  performances. 

At  first,  both  the  anonymous  opponents  observed  the  laws 
of  propriety.  But  at  length  Steele  so  far  forgot  himself  as  to 
throw  an  odious  imputation  on  the  morals  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
administration.  Addison  replied  with  severity,  but,  in  our 
opinion,  with  less  severity  than  was  due  to  so  grave  an  offence 
against  morality  and  decorum ;  nor  did  he,  in  his  just  anger, 
forget  for  a  moment  the  laws  of  good  taste  and  good  breeding. 
One  calumny  which  has  been  often  repeated,  and  never  yet 
contradicted,  it  is  our  duty  to  expose.  It  is  asserted  in  the 
Biographia  Britannica  that  Addison  designated  Steele  as 
"  little  Dicky."  This  assertion  was  repeated  by  Johnson,  who 
had  never  seen  the  Old  Whig,  and  was  therefore  excusable. 
It  has  also  been  repeated  by  Miss  Aikin,  who  has  seen  the 
Old  Whig,  and  for  whom  therefore  there  is  less  excuse.  Now, 
it  is  true  that  the  words  "  little  Dicky  "  occur  in  the  Old  Whig, 
and  that  Steele's  name  was  Richard.  It  is  equally  true  that 
the  words  "little  Isaac"  occur  in  the  Duenna,  and  that  New- 
ton's name  was  Isaac.  But  we  confidently  affirm  that  Addison's 
"  little  Dicky  "  had  no  more  to  do  with  Steele  than  Sheridan's 
"  little  Isaac "  with  Newton.  If  we  apply  the  words  "  little 
Dicky  "  to  Steele,  we  deprive  a  very  lively  and  ingenious  pas- 
sage, not  only  of  all  its  wit,  but  of  all  its  meaning.  Little 
Dicky  was  the  nickname  of  Henry  Norris,  an  actor  of  remark- 
ably small  stature,  but  of  great  humour,  who  played  the  usurer 
Gomez,  then  a  most  popular  part,  in  Dryden's  Spanish  Friar)- 

1  We  will  transcribe  the  whole  paragraph.  How  it  can  ever  have  been 
misunderstood  is  unintelligible  to  us. 

But  our  author's  chief  concern  is  for  the  poor  House  of  Commons,  whom  he  repre- 
sents as  naked  and  defenceless,  when  the  Crown,  by  losing  this  prerogative,  would  be 
less  able  to  protect  them  against  the  power  of  a  House  of  Lords.  Who  forbears  laughing 
when  the  Spanish  Friar  represents  little  Dicky,  under  the  person  of  Gomez,  insulting 
the  Colonel  that  was  able  to  fright  him  out  of  his  wits  with  a  single  frown  ?  This  Gomez, 
says  he,  flew  upon  him  like  a  dragon,  got  him  down,  the  Devil  being  strong  in  him,  and 
gave  him  bastinado  on  bastinado,  and  buffet  on  buffet,  which  the  poor  Colonel,  being 
prostrate,  suffered  with  a  most  Christian  patience.  The  improbability  of  the  fact  never 


ADDISON  349 

The  merited  reproof  which  Steele  had  received,  though 
softened  by  some  kind  and  courteous  expressions,  galled  him 
bitterly.  He  replied  with  little  force  and  great  acrimony ;  but 
no  rejoinder  appeared.  Addison  was  fast  hastening  to  his 
grave ;  and  had,  we  may  well  suppose,  little  disposition  to 
prosecute  a  quarrel  with  an  old  friend.  His  complaint  had 
terminated  in  dropsy.  He  bore  up  long  and  manfully.  But 
at  length  he  abandoned  all  hope,  dismissed  his  physicians,  and 
calmly  prepared  himself  to  die. 

His  works  he  intrusted  to  the  care  of  Tickell,  and  dedicated 
them  a  very  few  days  before  his  death  to  Craggs,  in  a  letter 
written  with  the  sweet  and  graceful  eloquence  of  a  Saturday's 
Spectator.  In  this  his  last  composition,  he  alluded  to  his 
approaching  end  in  words  so  manly,  so  cheerful,  and  so  tender 
that  it  is  difficult  to  read  them  without  tears.  At  the  same 
time  he  earnestly  recommended  the  interests  of  Tickell  to  the 
care  of  Craggs. 

Within  a  few  hours  of  the  time  at  which  this  dedication  was 
written,  Addison  sent  to  beg  Gay,  who  was  then  living  by  his 
wits  about  town,  to  come  to  Holland  House.  Gay  went,  and 
was  received  with  great  kindness.  To  his  amazement  his  for- 
giveness was  implored  by  the  dying  man.  Poor  Gay,  the  most 
good-natured  and  simple  of  mankind,  could  not  imagine  what 
he  had  to  forgive.  There  was,  however,  some  wrong,  the 
remembrance  of  which  weighed  on  Addison 's  mind,  and  which 
he  declared  himself  anxious  to  repair.  He  was  in  a  state  of 
extreme  exhaustion ;  and  the  parting  was  doubtless  a  friendly 
one  on  both  sides.  Gay  supposed  that  some  plan  to  serve  him 
had  been  in  agitation  at  Court,  and  had  been  frustrated  by 
Addison's  influence.  Nor  is  this  improbable.  Gay  had  paid 
assiduous  court  to  the  royal  family.  But  in  the  Queen's  days 
he  had  been  the  eulogist  of  Bolingbroke,  and  was  still  connected 
with  many  Tories.  It  is  not  strange  that  Addison,  while  heated 

fails  to  raise  mirth  in  the  audience;  and  one  may  venture  to  answer  for  a  British  House 
of  Commons,  if  we  may  guess  from  its  conduct  hitherto,  that  it  will  scarce  be  either 
so  tame  or  so  weak  as  our  author  supposes. 


350  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

by  conflict,  should  have  thought  himself  justified  in  obstructing 
the  preferment  of  one  whom  he  might  regard  as  a  political 
enemy.  Neither  is  it  strange  that,  when  reviewing  his  whole 
life  and  earnestly  scrutinizing  all  his  motives,  he  should  think 
that  he  had  acted  an  unkind  and  ungenerous  part  in  using  his 
power  against  a  distressed  man  of  letters  who  was  as  harmless 
and  as  helpless  as  a  child. 

One  inference  may  be  drawn  from  this  anecdote.  It  appears 
that  Addison,  on  his  death-bed,  called  himself  to  a  strict  account, 
and  was  not  at  ease  till  he  had  asked  pardon  for  an  injury  which 
it  was  not  even  suspected  that  he  had  committed,  for  an  injury 
which  would  have  caused  disquiet  only  to  a  very  tender  con- 
science. Is  it  not  then  reasonable  to  infer  that,  if  he  had 
really  been  guilty  of  forming  a  base  conspiracy  against  the 
fame  and  fortunes  of  a  rival,  he  would  have  expressed  some 
remorse  for  so  serious  a  crime  ?  But  it  is  unnecessary  to 
multiply  arguments  and  evidence  for  the  defence  when  there 
is  neither  argument  nor  evidence  for  the  accusation. 

The  last  moments  of  Addison  were  perfectly  serene.  His 
interview  with  his  step-son  is  universally  known.  "  See,"  he 
said,  "  how  a  Christian  can  die !  "  The  piety  of  Addison  was, 
in  truth,  of  a  singularly  cheerful  character.  The  feeling  which 
predominates  in  all  his  devotional  writings,  is  gratitude.  God 
was  to  him  the  all-wise  and  all-powerful  Friend  who  had  watched 
over  his  cradle  with  more  than  maternal  tenderness ;  who  had 
listened  to  his  cries  before  they  could  form  themselves  in 
prayer ;  who  had  preserved  his  youth  from  the  snares  of  vice ; 
who  had  made  his  cup  run  over  with  worldly  blessings ;  who 
had  doubled  the  value  of  those  blessings  by  bestowing  a 
thankful  heart  to  enjoy  them  and  dear  friends  to  partake 
them ;  who  had  rebuked  the  waves  of  the  Ligurian  gulf,  had 
purified  the  autumnal  air  of  the  Campagna,  and  had  restrained 
the  avalanches  of  Mont  Cenis.  Of  the  Psalms,  his  favourite 
was  that  which  represents  the  Ruler  of  all  things  under  the 
endearing  image  of  a  shepherd,  whose  crook  guides  the  flock 
safe,  through  gloomy  and  desolate  glens  to  meadows  well 


ADDISON  351 

watered  and  rich  with  herbage.  On  that  Goodness  to  which 
he  ascribed  all  the  happiness  of  his  life,  he  relied  in  the  hour 
of  death  with  the  love  which  casteth  out  fear.  He  died  on 
the  seventeenth  of  June,  1719.  He  had  just  entered  on  his 
forty-eighth  year. 

His  body  lay  in  state  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber,  and  was 
borne  thence  to  the  Abbey  at  dead  of  night.  The  choir  sang 
a  funeral  hymn.  Bishop  Atterbury,  one  of  those  Tories  who 
had  loved  and  honoured  the  most  accomplished  of  the  Whigs, 
met  the  corpse,  and  led  the  procession  by  torchlight,  round 
the  shrine  of  Saint  Edward  and  the  graves  of  the  Plantagenets, 
to  the  Chapel  of  Henry  the  Seventh.  On  the  north  side  of 
that  Chapel,  in  the  vajult  of  the  House  of  Albemarle,  the  coffin 
of  Addison  lies  next  to  the  coffin  of  Montague.  Yet  a  few 
months,  and  the  same  mourners  passed  again  along  the  same 
aisle.  The  same  sad  anthem  was  again  chanted.  The  same 
vault  was  again  opened  ;  and  the  coffin  of  Craggs  was  placed 
close  to  the  coffin  of  Addison. 

Many  tributes  were  paid  to  the  memory  of  Addison ;  but 
one  alone  is  now  remembered.  Tickell  bewailed  his  friend  in 
an  elegy  which  would  do  honour  to  the  greatest  name  in  our 
literature,  and  which  unites  the  energy  and  magnificence  of 
Dryden  to  the  tenderness  and  purity  of  Cowper.  This  fine 
poem  was  prefixed  to  a  superb  edition  of  Addison's  works 
which  was  published,  in  1721,  by  subscription.  The  names  of 
the  subscribers  proved  how  widely  his  fame  had  been  spread. 
That  his  countrymen  should  be  eager  to  possess  his  writings, 
even  in  a  costly  form,  is  not  wonderful.  But  it  is  wonderful 
that,  though  English  literature  was  then  little  studied  on  the 
Continent,  Spanish  Grandees,  Italian  Prelates,  Marshals  of 
France,  should  be  found  in  the  list.  Among  the  most  remark- 
able names  are  those  of  the  Queen  of  Sweden,  of  Prince 
Eugene,  of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  of  the  Dukes  of 
Parma,  Modena,  and  Guastalla,  of  the  Doge  of  Genoa,  of  the 
Regent  Orleans,  and  of  Cardinal  Dubois.  We  ought  to  add 
that  this  edition,  though  eminently  beautiful,  is  in  some 


352  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

important  points   defective ;   nor,   indeed,   do   we  yet  possess 
a  complete  collection  of  Addison's  writings. 

It  is  strange  that  neither  his  opulent  and  noble  widow,  nor 
any  of  his  powerful  and  attached  friends,  should  have  thought 
of  placing  even  a  simple  tablet,  inscribed  with  his  name,  on 
the  walls  of  the  Abbey.  It  was  not  till  three  generations  had 
laughed  and  wept  over  his  pages  that  the  omission  was  supplied 
by  the  public  veneration.  At  length,  in  our  own  time,  his 
image,  skilfully  graven,  appeared  in  Poet's  Corner.  It  represents 
him,  as  we  can  conceive  him,  clad  in  his  dressing-gown,  and 
freed  from  his  wig,  stepping  from  his  parlour  at  Chelsea  into 
his  trim  little  garden,  with  the  account  of  the  "Everlasting 
Club,"  or  the  "Loves  of  Hilpa  and  Shajum,"  just  finished  for 
the  next  day's  Spectator,  in  his  hand.  Such  a  mark  of  national 
respect  was  due  to  the  unsullied  statesman,  to  the  accomplished 
scholar,  to  the  master  of  pure  English  eloquence,  to  the  con- 
summate painter  of  life  and  manners.  It  was  due,  above  all, 
to  the  great  satirist,  who  alone  knew  how  to  use  ridicule  without 
abusing  it ;  who,  without  inflicting  a  wound,  effected  a  great 
social  reform ;  and  who  reconciled  wit  and  virtue,  after  a  long 
and  disastrous  separation,  during  which  wit  had  been  led  astray 
by  profligacy,  and  virtue  by  fanaticism. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

(a)  WILLIAM  AND  MARY 

The  place  which  William  Henry,  Prince  of  Orange  Nassau, 
occupies  in  the  history  of  England  and  of  mankind  is  so  great 
that  it  may  be  desirable  to  portray  with  some  minuteness  the 
strong  lineaments  of  his  character.1 

He  was  now  in  his  thirty-seventh  year.  But  both  in  body 
and  in  mind  he  was  older  than  other  men  of  the  same  age. 
Indeed  it  might  be  said  that  he  had  never  been  young.  His 
external  appearance  is  almost  as  well  known  to  us  as  to  his 
own  captains  and  counsellors.  Sculptors,  painters,  and  medal- 
lists exerted  their  utmost  skill  in  the  work  of  transmitting  his 
features  to  posterity ;  and  his  features  were  such  as  no  artist 
could  fail  to  seize,  and  such  as,  once  seen,  could  never  be 
forgotten.  His  name  at  once  calls  up  before  us  a  slender  and 
feeble  frame,  a  lofty  and  ample  forehead,  a  nose  curved  like 
the  beak  of  an  eagle,  an  eye  rivalling  that  of  an  eagle  in  bright- 
ness and  keenness,  a  thoughtful  and  somewhat  sullen  brow,  a 
firm  and  somewhat  peevish  mouth,  a  cheek  pale,  thin,  and 
deeply  furrowed  by  sickness  and  by  care.  That  pensive,  severe, 
and  solemn  aspect  could  scarcely  have  belonged  to  a  happy  or 
a  good-humoured  man.  But  it  indicates,  in  a  manner  not  to  be 
mistaken,  capacity  equal  to  the  most  arduous  enterprises,  and 
fortitude  not  to  be  shaken  by  reverses  or  dangers. 

1  The  chief  materials  from  which  I  have  taken  my  description  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange  will  be  found  in  Burnet's  History,  in  Temple's  and 
Gourville's  Memoirs,  in  the  Negotiations  of  the  Counts  of  Estrades  and 
Avaux,  in  Sir  George  Downing's  Letters  to  Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon,  in 
Wagenaar's  voluminous  History,  in  Van  Kamper's  Karakterkunde  der  Vader- 
landsche  Geschiedenis,  and,  above  all,  in  William's  own  confidential  corre- 
spondence, of  which  the  Duke  of  Portland  permitted  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
to  take  a  copy. 

353 


354  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Nature  had  largely  endowed  William  with  the  qualities  of  a 
great  ruler ;  and  education  had  developed  those  qualities  in  no 
common  degree.  With  strong  natural  sense,  and  rare  force  of 
will,  he  found  himself,  when  first  his  mind  began  to  open, 
a  fatherless  and  motherless  child,  the  chief  of  a  great  but 
depressed  and  disheartened  party,  and  the  heir  to  vast  and 
indefinite  pretensions,  which  excited  the  dread  and  aversion  of 
the  oligarchy  then  supreme  in  the  United  Provinces.  The 
common  people,  fondly  attached  during  a  century  to  his  house, 
indicated,  whenever  they  saw  him,  in  a  manner  not  to  be  mis- 
taken, that  they  regarded  him  as  their  rightful  head.  The  able 
and  experienced  ministers  of  the  republic,  mortal  enemies  of 
his  name,  came  every  day  to  pay  their  feigned  civilities  to 
him,  and  to  observe  the  progress  of  his  mind.  The  first  move- 
ments of  his  ambition  were  carefully  watched :  every  unguarded 
word  uttered  by  him  was  noted  down ;  nor  had  he  near  him 
any  adviser  on  whose  judgment  reliance  could  be  placed.  He 
was  scarcely  fifteen  years  old  when  all  the  domestics  who 
were  attached  to  his  interest,  or  who  enjoyed  any  share  of  his 
confidence,  were  removed  from  under  his  roof  by  the  jealous 
government.  He  remonstrated  with  energy  beyond  his  years, 
but  in  vain.  Vigilant  observers  saw  the  tears  more  than  once 
rise  in  the  eyes  of  the  young  state  prisoner.  His  health, 
naturally  delicate,  sank  for  a  time  under  the  emotions  which 
his  desolate  situation  had  produced.  Such  situations  bewilder 
and  unnerve  the  weak,  but  call  forth  all  the  strength  of  the 
strong.  Surrounded  by  snares  in  which  an  ordinary  youth 
would  have  perished,  William  learned  to  tread  at  once  warily 
and  firmly.  Long  before  he  reached  manhood  he  knew  how 
to  keep  secrets,  how  to  baffle  curiosity  by  dry  and  guarded 
answers,  how  to  conceal  all  passions  under  the  same  show  of 
grave  tranquillity.  Meanwhile  he  made  little  proficiency  in 
fashionable  or  literary  accomplishments.  The  manners  of  the 
Dutch  nobility  of  that  age  wanted  the  grace  which  was  found 
in  the  highest  perfection  among  the  gentlemen  of  France, 
and  which,  in  an  inferior  degree,  embellished  the  Court  of 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  355 

England ;  and  his  manners  were  altogether  Dutch.  Even  his 
countrymen  thought  him  blunt.  To  foreigners  he  often  seemed 
churlish.  In  his  intercourse  with  the  world  in  general  he 
appeared  ignorant  or  negligent  of  those  arts  which  double  the 
value  of  a  favour  and  take  away  the  sting  of  a  refusal.  He 
was  little  interested  in  letters  or  science.  The  discoveries  of 
Newton  and  Leibnitz,  the  poems  of  Dryden  and  Boileau,  were 
unknown  to  him.  Dramatic  performances  tired  him  ;  and  he 
was  glad  to  turn  away  from  the  stage  and  to  talk  about  public 
affairs,  while  Orestes  was  raving,  or  while  Tartuffe  was  press- 
ing Elmira's  hand.  He  had  indeed  some  talent  for  sarcasm, 
and  not  seldom  employed,  quite  unconsciously,  a  natural  rhet- 
oric, quaint,  indeed,  but  vigorous  and  original.  He  did  not, 
however,  in  the  least  affect  the  character  of  a  wit  or  of  an 
orator.  His  attention  had  been  confined  to  those  studies  which 
form  strenuous  and  sagacious  men  of  business.  From  a  child 
he  listened  with  interest  when  high  questions  of  alliance, 
finance,  and  war  were  discussed.  Of  geometry  he  learned  as 
much  as  was  necessary  for  the  construction  of  a  ravelin  or  a 
hornwork.  Of  languages,  by  the  help  of  a  memory  singularly 
powerful,  he  learned  as  much  as  was  "necessary  to  enable  him 
to  comprehend  and  answer  without  assistance  everything  that 
was  said  to  him,  and  every  letter  which  he  received.  The 
Dutch  was  his  own  tongue.  He  understood  Latin,  Italian,  and 
Spanish.  He  spoke  and  wrote  French,  English,  and  German, 
inelegantly,  it  is  true,  and  inexactly,  but  fluently  and  intel- 
ligibly. No  qualification  could  be  more  important  to  a  man 
whose  life  was  to  be  passed  in  organizing  great  alliances,  and 
in  commanding  armies  assembled  from  different  countries. 

One  class  of  philosophical  questions  had  been  forced  on  his 
attention  by  circumstances,  and  seems  to  have  interested  him 
more  than  might  have  been  expected  from  his  general  char- 
acter. Among  the  Protestants  of  the  United  Provinces,  as 
among  the  Protestants  of  our  island,  there  were  two  great 
religious  parties  which  almost  exactly  coincided  with  two  great 
political  parties.  The  chiefs  of  the  municipal  oligarchy  were 


356  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Arminians,  and  were  commonly  regarded  by  the  multitude  as 
little  better  than  Papists.-  The  princes  of  Orange  had  generally 
been  the  patrons  of  the  Calvinistic  divinity,  and  owed  no  small 
part  of  their  popularity  to  their  zeal  for  the  doctrines  of  elec- 
tion and  final  perseverance,  a  zeal  not  always  enlightened  by 
knowledge  or  tempered  by  humanity.  William  had  been  care- 
fully instructed  from  a  child  in  the  theological  system  to  which 
his  family  was  attached  ;  and  he  regarded  that  system  with  even 
more  than  the  partiality  which  men  generally  feel  for  a  hered- 
itary faith.  He  had  ruminated  on  the  great  enigmas  which 
had  been  discussed  in  the  Synod  of  Dort,  and  had  found  in 
the  austere  and  inflexible  logic  of  the  Genevese  school  some- 
thing which  suited  his  intellect  and  his  temper.  That  example 
of  intolerance,  indeed,  which  some  of  his  predecessors  had  set 
he  never  imitated.  For  all  persecution  he  felt  a  fixed  aversion, 
which  he  avowed,  not  only  where  the  avowal  was  obviously 
politic,  but  on  occasions  where  it  seemed  that  his  interest 
would  have  been  promoted  by  dissimulation  or  by  silence.  His 
theological  opinions,  however,  were  even  more  decided  than 
those  of  his  ancestors.  The  tenet  of  predestination  was  the 
keystone  of  his  religion.  He  often  declared  that,  if  he  were 
to  abandon  that  tenet,  he  must  abandon  with  it  all  belief  in  a 
superintending  Providence,  and  must  become  a  mere  Epicu- 
rean. Except  in  this  single  instance,  all  the  sap  of  his  vigor- 
ous mind  was  early  drawn  away  from  the  speculative  to  the 
practical.  The  faculties  which  are  necessary  for  the  conduct 
of  important  business  ripened  in  him  at  a  time  of  life  when 
they  have  scarcely  begun  to  blossom  in  ordinary  men.  Since 
Octavius  the  world  had  seen  no  such  instance  of  precocious 
statesmanship.  Skilful  diplomatists  were  surprised  to  hear  the 
weighty  observations  which  at  seventeen  the  Prince  made  on 
public  affairs,  and  still  more  surprised  to  see  a  lad,  in  situa- 
tions in  which  he  might  have  been  expected  to  betray  strong 
passion,  preserve  a  composure  as  imperturbable  as  their  own. 
At  eighteen  he  sat  among  the  fathers  of  the  commonwealth, 
grave,  discreet,  and  judicious  as  the  oldest  among  them.  At 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  357 

twenty-one,  in  a  day  of  gloom  and  terror,  he  was  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  administration.  At  twenty-three  he  was  renowned 
throughout  Europe  as  a  soldier  and  a  politician.  He  had  put 
domestic  factions  under  his  feet :  he  was  the  soul  of  a  mighty 
coalition ;  and  he  had  contended  with  honour  in  the  field 
against  some  of  the  greatest  generals  of  the  age. 

His  personal  tastes  were  those  rather  of  a  warrior  than  of  a 
statesman  :  but  he,  like  his  great-grandfather,  the  silent  prince 
who  founded  the  Batavian  commonwealth,  occupies  a  far 
higher  place  among  statesmen  than  among  warriors.  The 
event  of  battles,  indeed,  is  not  an  unfailing  test  of  the  abilities 
of  a  commander ;  and  it  would  be  peculiarly  unjust  to  apply 
this  test  to  William ;  for  it  was  his  fortune  to  be  almost 
always  opposed  to  captains  who  were  consummate  masters  of 
their  art,  and  to  troops  far  superior  in  discipline  to  his  own. 
Yet  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  by  no  means  equal, 
as  a  general  in  the  field,  to  some  who  ranked  far  below  him 
in  intellectual  powers.  To  those  whom  he  trusted  he  spoke  on 
this  subject  with  the  magnanimous  frankness  of  a  man  who 
had  done  great  things,  and  who  could  well  afford  to  acknowl- 
edge some  deficiencies.  He  had  never,  he  said,  served  an 
apprenticeship  to  the  military  profession.  He  had  been  placed, 
while  still  a  boy,  at  the  head  of  an  army.  Among  his  officers 
there  had  been  none  competent  to  instruct  him.  His  own 
blunders  and  their  consequences  had  been  his  only  lessons. 
"I  would  give,"  he  once  exclaimed,  "a  good  part  of  my 
estates  to  have  served  a  few  campaigns  under  the  Prince  of 
Conde  before  I  had  to  command  against  him."  It  is  not 
improbable  that  the  circumstance  which  prevented  William 
from  attaining  any  eminent  dexterity  in  strategy  may  have 
been  favourable  to  the  general  vigour  of  his  intellect.  If  his 
battles  were  not  those  of  a  great  tactician,  they  entitled  him 
to  be  called  a  great  man.  No  disaster  could  for  one  moment 
deprive  him  of  his  firmness  or  of  the  entire  possession  of  all 
his  faculties.  His  defeats  were  repaired  with  such  marvellous 
celerity  that  before  his  enemies  had  sung  the  Te  Deum  he 


358  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

was  again  ready  for  conflict ;  nor  did  his  adverse  fortune  ever 
deprive  him  of  the  respect  and  confidence  of  his  soldiers. 
That  respect  and  confidence  he  owed  in  no  small  measure  to 
his  personal  courage.  Courage,  in  the  degree  which  is  neces- 
sary to  carry  a  soldier  without  disgrace  through  a  campaign, 
is  possessed,  or  might,  under  proper  training,  be  acquired,  by 
the  great  majority  of  men.  But  courage  like  that  of  William 
is  rare  indeed.  He  was  proved  by  every  test ;  by  war,  by 
wounds,  by  painful  and  depressing  maladies,  by  raging  seas, 
by  the  imminent  and  constant  risk  of  assassination,  a  risk 
which  has  shaken  very  strong  nerves,  a  risk  which  severely 
tried  even  the  adamantine  fortitude  of  Cromwell.  Yet  none 
could  ever  discover  what  that  thing  was  which  the  Prince  of 
Orange  feared.  His  advisers  could  with  difficulty  induce  him 
to  take  any  precaution  against  the  pistols  and  daggers  of 
conspirators.1  Old  sailors  were  amazed  at  the  composure 
which  he  preserved  amidst  roaring  breakers  on  a  perilous 
coast.  In  battle  his  bravery  made  him  conspicuous  even 
among  tens  of  thousands  of  brave  warriors,  drew  forth  the 
generous  applause  of  hostile  armies,  and  was  scarcely  ever 
questioned  even  by  the  injustice  of  hostile  factions.  During  his 
first  campaigns  he  exposed  himself  like  a  man  who  sought  for 
death,  was  always  foremost  in  the  charge  and  last  in  the 
retreat,  fought,  sword  in  hand,  in  the  thickest  press,  and,  with 
a  musket  ball  in  his  arm  and  the  blood  streaming  over  his 
cuirass,  still  stood  his  ground  and  waved  his  hat  under  the 
hottest  fire.  His  friends  adjured  him  to  take  more  care  of  a 
life  invaluable  to  his  country ;  and  his  most  illustrious  antago- 
nist, the  great  Conde,  remarked,  after  the  bloody  day  of 

1  William  was  earnestly  intreated  by  his  friends,  after  the  peace  of 
Ryswick,  to  speak  seriously  to  the  French  ambassador  about  the  schemes 
of  assassination  which  the  Jacobites  of  St.  Germains  were  constantly  con- 
triving. The  cold  magnanimity  with  which  these  intimations  of  danger 
were  received  is  singularly  characteristic.  To  Bentinck,  who  had  sent  from 
Paris  very  alarming  intelligence,  William  merely  replied,  at  the  end  of  a  long 
letter  of  business,  —  "Pour  les  assasins  je  ne  luy  en  ay  pas  voulu  parler, 
croiant  que  c'etoit  au  desous  de  moy."  May  T%.  1698.  I  keep  the  original 
orthography,  if  it  is  to  be  so  called. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  359 

Seneff,  that  the  Prince  of  Orange  had  in  all  things  borne 
himself  like  an  old  general,  except  in  exposing  himself  like  a 
young  soldier.  William  denied  that  he  was  guilty  of  temerity. 
It  was,  he  said,  from  a  sense  of  duty,  and  on  a  cool  calculation 
of  what  the  public  interest  required,  that  he  was  always  at  the 
post  of  danger.  The  troops  which  he  commanded  had  been 
little  used  to  war,  and  shrank  from  a  close  encounter  with  the 
veteran  soldiery  of  France.  It  was  necessary  that  their  leader 
should  show  them  how  battles  were  to  be  won.  And  in  truth 
more  than  one  day  which  had  seemed  hopelessly  lost  was 
retrieved  by  the  hardihood  with  which  he  rallied  his  broken 
battalions  and  cut  down  with  his  own  hand  the  cowards  who 
set  the  example  of  flight.  Sometimes,  however,  it  seemed  that 
he  had  a  strange  pleasure  in  venturing  his  person.  It  was 
remarked  that  his  spirits  were  never  so  high  and  his  manners 
never  so  gracious  and  easy  as  amidst  the  tumult  and  carnage 
of  a  battle.  Even  in  his  pastimes  he  liked  the  excitement  of 
danger.  Cards,  chess,  and  billiards  gave  him  no  pleasure. 
The  chase  was  his  favourite  recreation ;  and  he  loved  it  most 
when  it  was  most  hazardous.  His  leaps  were  sometimes  such 
that  his  boldest  companions  did  not  like  to  follow  him.  He 
seems  even  to  have  thought  the  most  hardy  field  sports  of 
England  effeminate,  and  to  have  pined  in  the  Great  Park  of 
Windsor  for  the  game  which  he  had  been  used  to  drive  to 
bay  in  the  forests  of  Guelders  —  wolves,  and  wild  boars,  and 
huge  stags  with  sixteen  antlers.1 

The  audacity  of  his  spirit  was  the  more  remarkable  because 
his  physical  organization  was  unusually  delicate.  From  a  child 
he  had  been  weak  and  sickly.  In  the  prime  of  manhood  his 
complaints  had  been  aggravated  by  a  severe  attack  of  smallpox. 

1  From  Windsor  he  wrote  to  Bentinck,  then  ambassador  at  Paris.  "J'ay 
pris  avant  hier  un  cerf  dans  la  forest  avec  les  chains  du  Pr.  de  Denm. 
et  ay  fait  un  assez  jolie  chasse,  autant  que  ce  vilain  paiis  le  permest." 
M"^  *'  1698.  The  spelling  is  bad,  but  not  worse  than  Napoleon's.  William 
wrote  in  better  humour  from  Loo.  "Nous  avons  pris  deux  gros  cerfs,  le 
premier  dans  Dorewaert,  qui  est  un  des  plus  gros  que  je  sache  avoir  jamais 
pris.  II  porte  seize."  SgjS  ,697. 


360  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  was  asthmatic  and  consumptive.  His  slender  frame  was 
shaken  by  a  constant  hoarse  cough.  He  could  not  sleep 
unless  his  head  was  propped  by  several  pillows,  and  could 
scarcely  draw  his  breath  in  any  but  the  purest  air.  Cruel 
headaches  frequently  tortured  him.  Exertion  soon  fatigued 
him.  The  physicians  constantly  kept  up  the  hopes  of  his 
enemies  by  fixing  some  date  beyond  which,  if  there  were 
anything  certain  in  medical  science,  it  was  impossible  that  his 
broken  constitution  could  hold  out.  Yet,  through  a  life  which 
was  one  long  disease,  the  force  of  his  mind  never  failed,  on 
any  great  occasion,  to  bear  up  his  suffering  and  languid  body. 
He  was  born  with  violent  passions  and  quick  sensibilities : 
but  the  strength  of  his  emotions  was  not  suspected  by  the 
world.  From  the  multitude  his  joy  and  his  grief,  his  affection 
and  his  resentment,  were  hidden  by  a  phlegmatic  serenity 
which  made  him  pass  for  the  most  cold-blooded  of  mankind. 
Those  who  brought  him  good  news  could  seldom  detect  any 
sign  of  pleasure.  Those  who  saw  him  after  a  defeat  looked  in 
vain  for  any  trace  of  vexation.  He  praised  and  reprimanded, 
rewarded  and  punished,  with  the  stern  tranquillity  of  a  Mo- 
hawk chief :  but  those  who  knew  him  well  and  saw  him  near 
were  aware  that  under  all  this  ice  a  fierce  fire  was  constantly 
burning.  It  was  seldom  that  anger  deprived  him  of  power 
over  himself.  But  when  he  was  really  enraged  the  first  out- 
break of  his  passion  was  terrible.  It  was  indeed  scarcely  safe 
to  approach  him.  On  these  rare  occasions,  however,  as  soon 
as  he  regained  his  self-command,  he  made  such  ample  repara- 
tion to  those  whom  he  had  wronged  as  tempted  them  to  wish 
that  he  would  go  into  a  fury  again.  His  affection  was  as 
impetuous  as  his  wrath.  Where  he  loved,  he  loved  with  the 
whole  energy  of  his  strong  mind.  When  death  separated  him 
from  what  he  loved,  the  few  who  witnessed  his  agonies 
trembled  for  his  reason  and  his  life.  To  a  very  small  circle 
of  intimate  friends,  on  whose  fidelity  and  secrecy  he  could  abso- 
lutely depend,  he  was  a  different  man  from  the  reserved  and 
stoical  William  whom  the  multitude  supposed  to  be  destitute 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  361 

of  human  feelings.  He  was  kind,  cordial,  open,  even  con- 
vivial and  jocose,  would  sit  at  table  many  hours,  and  would 
bear  his  full  share  in  festive  conversation.  Highest  in  his 
favour  stood  a  gentleman  of  his  household  named  Bentinck, 
sprung  from  a  noble  Batavian  race,  and  destined  to  be  the 
founder  of  one  of  the  great  patrician  houses  of  England. 
The  fidelity  of  Bentinck  had  been  tried  by  no  common  test. 
It  was  while  the  United  Provinces  were  struggling  for  exist- 
ence against  the  French  power  that  the  young  Prince  on 
whom  all  their  hopes  were  fixed  was  seized  by  the  smallpox. 
That  disease  had  been  fatal  to  many  members  of  his  family, 
and  at  first  wore,  in  his  case,  a  peculiarly  malignant  aspect. 
The  public  consternation  was  great.  The  streets  of  the  Hague 
were  crowded  from  daybreak  to  sunset  by  persons  anxiously 
asking  how  his  Highness  was.  At  length  his  complaint  took 
a  favourable  turn.  His  escape  was  attributed  partly  to  his  own 
singular  equanimity,  and  partly  to  the  intrepid  and  indefati- 
gable friendship  of  Bentinck.  From  the  hands  of  Bentinck 
alone  William  took  food  and  medicine.  By  Bentinck  alone 
William  was  lifted  from  his  bed  and  laid  down  in  it. 
"Whether  Bentinck  slept  or  not  while  I  was  ill,"  said 
William  to  Temple,  with  great  tenderness,  "  I  know  not. 
But  this  I  know,  that,  through  sixteen  days  and  nights,  I 
never  once  called  for  anything  but  that  Bentinck  was  instantly 
at  my  side."  Before  the  faithful  servant  had  entirely  per- 
formed his  task,  he  had  himself  caught  the  contagion.  Still, 
however,  he  bore  up  against  drowsiness  and  fever  till  his  master 
was  pronounced  convalescent.  Then,  at  length,  Bentinck  asked 
leave  to  go  home.  It  was  time  :  for  his  limbs  would  no  longer 
support  him.  He  was  in  great  danger,  but  recovered,  and,  as 
soon  as  he  left  his  bed,  hastened  to  the  army,  where,  during 
many  sharp  campaigns,  he  was  ever  found,  as  he  had  been  in 
peril  of  a  different  kind,  close  to  William's  side. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  a  friendship  as  warm  and  pure  as 
any  that  ancient  or  modern  history  records.  The  descendants 
of  Bentinck  still  preserve  many  letters  written  by  William  to 


362  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

their  ancestor :  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no  person 
who  has  not  studied  those  letters  can  form  a  correct  notion  of 
the  Prince's  character.  He  whom  even  his  admirers  generally 
accounted  the  most  distant  and  frigid  of  men  here  forgets  all 
distinctions  of  rank,  and  pours  out  all  his  thoughts  with  the 
ingenuousness  of  a  schoolboy.  He  imparts  without  reserve 
secrets  of  the  highest  moment.  He  explains  with  perfect  sim- 
plicity vast  designs  affecting  all  the  governments  of  Europe. 
Mingled  with  his  communications  on  such  subjects  are  other 
communications  of  a  very  different,  but  perhaps  not  of  a  less 
interesting,  kind.  All  his  adventures,  all  his  personal  feel- 
ings, his  long  runs  after  enormous  stags,  his  carousals  on 
St.  Hubert's  day,  the  growth  of  his  plantations,  the  failure  of 
his  melons,  the  state  of  his  stud,  his  wish  to  procure  an  easy 
pad  nag  for  his  wife,  his  vexation  at  learning  that  one  of  his 
household,  after  ruining  a  girl  of  good  family,  refused  to  marry 
her,  his  fits  of  seasickness,  his  coughs,  his  headaches,  his  de- 
votional moods,  his  gratitude  for  the  divine  protection  after  a 
great  escape,  his  struggles  to  submit  himself  to  the  divine  will 
after  a  disaster,  are  described  with  an  amiable  garrulity  hardly 
to  have  been  expected  from  the  most  discreet  and  sedate  states- 
man of  the  age.  Still  more  remarkable  is  the  careless  effusion 
of  his  tenderness,  and  the  brotherly  interest  which  he  takes 
in  his  friend's  domestic  felicity.  When  an  heir  is  born  to 
Bentinck,  "  he  will  live,  I  hope,"  says  William,  "  to  be  as  good 
a  fellow  as  you  are ;  and,  if  I  should  have  a  son,  our  chil- 
dren will  love  each  other,  I  hope,  as  we  have  done."  1  Through 
life  he  continues  to  regard  the  little  Bentincks  with  paternal 
kindness.  He  calls  them  by  endearing  diminutives  :  he  takes 
charge  of  them  in  their  father's  absence,  and,  though  vexed  at 
being  forced  to  refuse  them  any  pleasure,  will  not  suffer  them 
to  go  on  a  hunting  party,  where  there  would  be  risk  of  a  push 
from  a  stag's  horn,  or  to  sit  up  late  at  a  riotous  supper.2 

1  March  3.  1679. 

2  "  Voila  en  peu  de  mot  le  detail  de  nostre  St.  Hubert.    Et  j'ay  eu  soin  que 
M.  Woodstoc  "  (Bentinck's  eldest  son)  "n'a  point  este  &  la  chasse,  bien  moin 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  363 

When  their  mother  is  taken  ill  during  her  husband's  absence, 
William,  in  the  midst  of  business  of  the  highest  moment,  finds 
time  to  send  off  several  expresses  in  one  day  with  short  notes 
containing  intelligence  of  her  state.1  On  one  occasion,  when 
she  is  pronounced  out  of  danger  after  a  severe  attack,  the 
Prince  breaks  forth  into  fervent  expressions  of  gratitude  to 
God.  "I  write,"  he  says,  "with  tears  of  joy  in  my  eyes."2 
There  is  a  singular  charm  in  such  letters,  penned  by  a  man 
whose  irresistible  energy  and  inflexible  firmness  extorted  the 
respect  of  his  enemies,  whose  cold  and  ungracious  demeanour 
repelled  the  attachment  of  almost  all  his  partisans,  and  whose 
mind  was  occupied  by  gigantic  schemes  which  have  changed 
the  face  of  the  world. 

His  kindness  was  not  misplaced.  Bentinck  was  early  pro- 
nounced by  Temple  to  be  the  best  and  truest  servant  that  ever 
prince  had  the  good  fortune  to  possess,  and  continued  through 
life  to  merit  that  honourable  character.  The  friends  were  in- 
deed made  for  each  other.  William  wanted  neither  a  guide 
nor  a  flatterer.  Having  a'  firm  and  just  reliance  on  his  own 
judgment,  he  was  not  partial  to  counsellors  who  dealt  much  in 
suggestions  and  objections.  At  the  same  time  he  had  too  much 
discernment,  and  too  much  elevation  of  mind,  to  be  gratified 
by  sycophancy.  The  confidant  of  such  a  prince  ought  to  be  a 
man,  not  of  inventive  genius  or  commanding  spirit,  but  brave 
and  faithful,  capable  of  executing  orders  punctually,  of  keeping 
secrets  inviolably,  of  observing  facts  vigilantly,  and  of  reporting 
them  truly ;  and  such  a  man  was  Bentinck. 

William  was  not  less  fortunate  in  marriage  than  in  friend- 
ship. Yet  his  marriage  had  not  at  first  promised  much  domes- 
tic happiness.  His  choice  had  been  determined  chiefly  by 
political  considerations :  nor  did  it  seem  likely  that  any  strong 
affection  would  grow  up  between  a  handsome  girl  of  sixteen, 

au  soupe",  quoyqu'il  fut  icy.    Vous  pouvez  pourtant  croire  que  de  n'avoir  pas 
chasse  1'a  un  peu  mortifie,  mais  je  ne  1'ay  pas  ause  prendre  sur  moy,  puisque 
vous  m'aviez  dit  que  vous  ne  le  souhaitiez  pas."   From  Loo,  Nov.  4.  1679. 
1  On  the  1 5th  of  June,  1688.  2  Sept.  6.  1679. 


364  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

well  disposed  indeed,  and  naturally  intelligent,  but  ignorant 
and  simple,  and  a  bridegroom  who,  though  he  had  not  com- 
pleted his  twenty-eighth  year,  was  in  constitution  older  than 
her  father,  whose  manner  was  chilling,  and  whose  head  was 
constantly  occupied  by  public  business  or  by  field  sports.  For  a 
time  William  was  a  negligent  husband.  He  was  indeed  drawn 
away  from  his  wife  by  other  women,  particularly  by  one  of  her 
ladies,  Elizabeth  Villiers,  who,  though  destitute  of  personal  at- 
tractions, and  disfigured  by  a  hideous  squint,  possessed  talents 
which  well  fitted  her  to  partake  his  cares.1  He  was  indeed 
ashamed  of  his  errors,  and  spared  no  pains  to  conceal  them  : 
but,  in  spite  of  all  his  precautions,  Mary  well  knew  that  he 
was  not  strictly  faithful  to  her.  Spies  and  tale-bearers,  encour- 
aged by  her  father,  did  their  best  to  inflame  her  resentment. 
A  man  of  a  very  different  character,  the  excellent  Ken,  who 
was  her  chaplain  at  the  Hague  during  some  months,  was  so 
much  incensed  by  her  wrongs  that  he,  with  more  zeal  than  dis- 
cretion, threatened  to  reprimand  her  husband  severely.2  She, 
however,  bore  her  injuries  with  a  meekness  and  patience  which 
deserved,  and  gradually  obtained,  William's  esteem  and  grati- 
tude. Yet  there  still  remained  one  cause  of  estrangement.  A 
time  would  probably  come  when  the  Princess,  who  had  been 
educated  only  to  work  embroidery,  to  play  on  the  spinet,  and 
to  read  the  Bible  and  the  Whole  Duty  of  Man,  would  be  the 
chief  of  a  great  monarchy,  and  would  hold  the  balance  of 
Europe,  while  her  lord,  ambitious,  versed  in  affairs,  and  bent 
on  great  enterprises,  would  find  in  the  British  government  no 
place  marked  out  for  him,  and  would  hold  power  only  from  her 
bounty  and  during  her  pleasure.  It  is  not  strange  that  a  man 
so  fond  of  authority  as  William,  and  so  conscious  of  a  genius 
for  command,  should  have  strongly  felt  that  jealousy  which, 
during  a  few  hours  of  royalty,  put  dissension  between  Guild- 
ford  Dudley  and  the  Lady  Jane,  and  which  produced  a  rupture 

1  See  Swift's  account  of  her  in  the  Journal  to  Stella. 

2  Henry  Sidney's  Journal  of  March  31.  1680,  in  Mr.  Blencowe's  interesting 
collection. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  365 

still  more  tragical  between  Darnley  and  the  Queen  of  Scots. 
The  Princess  of  Orange  had  not  the  faintest  suspicion  of  her 
husband's  feelings.  Her  preceptor,  Bishop  Compton,  had  in- 
structed her  carefully  in  religion,  and  had  especially  guarded 
her  mind  against  the  arts  of  Roman  Catholic  divines,  but  had 
left  her  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  English  constitution  and  of 
her  own  position.  She  knew  that  her  marriage  vow  bound  her 
to  obey  her  husband  ;  and  it  had  never  occurred  to  her  that 
the  relation  in  which  they  stood  to  each  other  might  one  day 
be  inverted.  She  had  been  nine  years  married  before  she  dis- 
covered the  cause  of  William's  discontent ;  nor  would  she  ever 
have  learned  it  from  himself.  In  general  his  temper  inclined 
him  rather  to  brood  over  his  griefs  than  to  give  utterance  to 
them  ;  and  in  this  particular  case  his  lips  were  sealed  by  a 
very  natural  delicacy.  At  length  a  complete  explanation  and 
reconciliation  were  brought  about  by  the  agency  of  Gilbert 
Burnet.  .  .  . 

All  the  peculiarities  of  his  character  fitted  him  to  be  the 
peacemaker  between  William  and  Mary.  When  persons  who 
ought  to  esteem  and  love  each  other  are  kept  asunder,  as  often 
happens,  by  some  cause  which  three  words  of  frank  explana- 
tion would  remove,  they  are  fortunate  if  they  possess  an  indis- 
creet friend  who  blurts  out  the  whole  truth.  Burnet  plainly 
told  the  Princess  what  the  feeling  was  which  preyed  upon  her 
husband's  mind.  She  learned  for  the  first  time,  with  no  small 
astonishment,  that,  when  she  became  Queen  of  England, 
William  would  not  share  her  throne.  She  warmly  declared 
that  there  was  no  proof  of  conjugal  submission  and  affection 
which  she  was  not  ready  to  give.  Burnet,  with  many  apologies 
and  with  solemn  protestations  that  no  human  being  had  put 
words  into  his  mouth,  informed  her  that  the  remedy  was  in 
her  own  hands.  She  might  easily,  when  the  crown  devolved 
on  her,  induce  her  Parliament  not  only  to  give  the  regal  title 
to  her  husband,  but  even  to  transfer  to  him  by  a  legislative 
act  the  administration  of  the  government.  "  But,"  he  added, 
"your  Royal  Highness  ought  to  consider  well  before  you 


366  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

announce  any  such  resolution.  For  it  is  a  resolution  which, 
having  once  been  announced,  cannot  safely  or  easily  be 
retracted."  "  I  want  no  time  for  consideration,"  answered 
Mary.  "It  is  enough  that  I  have  an  opportunity  of  showing 
my  regard  for  the  Prince.  Tell  him  what  I  say ;  and  bring 
him  to  me  that  he  may  hear  it  from  my  own  lips."  Burnet 
went  in  quest  of  William ;  but  William  was  many  miles  off 
after  a  stag.  It  was  not  till  the  next  day  that  the  decisive 
interview  took  place.  "  I  did  not  know  till  yesterday,"  said 
Mary,  "that  there  was  such  a  difference  between  the  laws  of 
England  and  the  laws  of  God.  But  I  now  promise  you  that 
you  shall  always  bear  rule  ;  and,  in  return,  I  ask  only  this,  that, 
as  I  shall  observe  the  precept  which  enjoins  wives  to  obey 
their  husbands,  you  will  observe  that  which  enjoins  husbands 
to  love  their  wives."  Her  generous  affection  completely  gained 
the  heart  of  William.  From  that  time  till  the  sad  day  when 
he  was  carried  away  in  fits  from  her  dying  bed,  there  was 
entire  friendship  and  confidence  between  them.  Many  of  her 
letters  to  him  are  extant ;  and  they  contain  abundant  evidence 
that  this  man,  unamiable  as  he  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  multi- 
tude, had  succeeded  in  inspiring  a  beautiful  and  virtuous 
woman,  born  his  superior,  with  a  passion  fond  even  to  idolatry. 

(b]  INVITATION  TO  WILLIAM 

The  Whigs  saw  that  their  time  was  come.  Whether  they 
should  draw  the  sword  against  the  government  had,  during  six  or 
seven  years,  been,  in  their  view,  merely  a  question  of  prudence  ; 
and  prudence  itself  now  urged  them  to  take  a  bold  course. 

In  May,  before  the  birth  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  while 
it  was  still  uncertain  whether  the  Declaration  would  or  would 
not  be  read  in  the  churches,  Edward  Russell  had  repaired  to 
the  Hague.  He  had  strongly  represented  to  the  Prince  of 
Orange  the  state  of  the  public  mind,  and  had  advised  his 
Highness  to  appear  in  England  at  the  head  of  a  strong  body 
of  troops,  and  to  call  the  people  to  arms. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  367 

William  had  seen,  at  a  glance,  the  whole  importance  of  the 
crisis.  "  Now  or  never,"  he  exclaimed  in  Latin  to  Van  Dykvelt.1 
To  Russell  he  held  more  guarded  language,  admitted  that  the 
distempers  of  the  state  were  such  as  required  an  extraordinary 
remedy,  but  spoke  with  earnestness  of  the  chance  of  failure, 
and  of  the  calamities  which  failure  might  bring  on  Britain  and 
on  Europe.  He  knew  well  that  many  who  talked  in  high  lan- 
guage about  sacrificing  their  lives  and  fortunes  for  their  country 
would  hesitate  when  the  prospect  of  another  Bloody  Circuit 
was  brought  close  to  them.  He  wanted  therefore  to  have,  not 
vague  professions  of  good  will,  but  distinct  invitations  and 
promises  of  support  subscribed  by  powerful  and  eminent 
men.  Russell  remarked  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to  entrust 
the  design  to  a  great -number  of  persons.  William  assented, 
and  said  that  a  few  signatures  would  be  sufficient,  if  they  were 
the  signatures  of  statesmen  who  represented  great  interests.2 

With  this  answer  Russell  returned  to  London,  where  he 
found  the  excitement  greatly  increased  and  daily  increasing. 
The  imprisonment  of  the  Bishops  and  the  delivery  of  the 
Queen  made  his  task  easier  than  he  could  have  anticipated. 
He  lost  no  time  in  collecting  the  voices  of  the  chiefs  of  the 
opposition.  His  principal  coadjutor  in  this  work  was  Henry 
Sidney,  brother  of  Algernon.  It  is  remarkable  that  both 
Edward  Russell  and  Henry  Sidney  had  been  in  the  household 
of  James,  that  both  had,  partly  on  public  and  partly  on  private 
grounds,  become  his  enemies,  and  that  both  had  to  avenge 
the  blood  of  near  kinsmen  who  had,  in  the  same  year,  fallen 
victims  to  his  implacable  severity.  Here  the  resemblance  ends. 
Russell,  with  considerable  abilities,  was  proud,  acrimonious, 
restless,  and  violent.  Sidney,  with  a  sweet  temper  and  win- 
ning manners,  seemed  to  be  deficient  in  capacity  and  knowl- 
edge, and  to  be  sunk  in  voluptuousness  and  indolence.  His 
face  and  form  were  eminently  handsome.  In  his  youth  he 
had  been  the  terror  of  husbands ;  and  even  now,  at  near  fifty, 

1  "Aut  nunc,  aut  nunquam."  —  Witsen  MS.  quoted  by  Wagenaar,  book  ix. 

2  Burnet,  i.  763. 


368  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

he  was  the  favourite  of  women  and  the  envy  of  younger  men. 
He  had  formerly  resided  at  the  Hague  in  a  public  character, 
and  had  then  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  large  share  of  William's 
confidence.  Many  wondered  at  this :  for  it  seemed  that  be- 
tween the  most  austere  of  statesmen  and  the  most  dissolute  of 
idlers  there  could  be  nothing  in  common.  Swift,  many  years 
later,  could  not  be  convinced  that  one  whom  he  had  known 
only  as  an  illiterate  and  frivolous  old  rake  could  really  have 
played  a  great  part  in  a  great  revolution.  Yet  a  less  acute  ob- 
server than  Swift  might  have  been  aware  that  there  is  a  certain 
tact,  resembling  an  instinct,  which  is  often  wanting  to  great 
orators  and  philosophers,  and  which  is  often  found  in  persons 
who,  if  judged  by  their  conversation  or  by  their  writings,  would 
be  pronounced  simpletons.  Indeed,  when  a  man  possesses  this 
tact,  it  is  in  some  sense  an  advantage  to  him  that  he  is  des- 
titute of  those  more  showy  talents  which  would  make  him  an 
object  of  admiration,  of  envy,  and  of  fear.  Sidney  was  a 
remarkable  instance  of  this  truth.  Incapable,  ignorant,  and  dis- 
sipated as  he  seemed  to  be,  he  understood,  or  rather  felt,  with 
whom  it  was  necessary  to  be  reserved,  and  with  whom  he  might 
safely  venture  to  be  communicative.  The  consequence  was  that 
he  did  what  Mordaunt,  with  all  his  vivacity  and  invention,  or 
Burnet,  with  all  his  multifarious  knowledge  and  fluent  elocu- 
tion, never  could  have  done.1 

With  the  old  Whigs  there  could  be  no  difficulty.  In  their 
opinion  there  had  been  scarcely  a  moment,  during  many  years, 
at  which  the  public  wrongs  would  not  have  justified  resistance. 
Devonshire,  who  might  be  regarded  as  their  chief,  had  private 
as  well  as  public  wrongs  to  revenge.  He  went  into  the  scheme 
with  his  whole  heart,  and  answered  for  his  party.2 

Russell  opened  the  design  to  Shrewsbury.  Sidney  sounded 
Halifax.  Shrewsbury  took  his  part  with  a  courage  and  decision 

1  Sidney's  Diary  and  Correspondence,  edited  by  Mr.  Blencowe ;  Mackay's 
Memoirs  with  Swift's  note  ;  Burnet,  i.  763. 

2  Burnet,  i.   764 ;   Letter  in  cipher  to  William,  dated  June   18.   1688,  in 
Dalrymple. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  369 

which,  at  a  later  period,  seemed  to  be  wanting  to  his  character. 
He  at  once  agreed  to  set  his  estate,  his  honours,  and  his  life 
on  the  stake.  But  Halifax  received  the  first  hint  of  the  project 
in  a  way  which  showed  that  it  would  be  useless,  and  perhaps 
hazardous,  to  be  explicit.  He  was  indeed  not  the  man  for  such 
an  enterprise.  His  intellect  was  inexhaustibly  fertile  of  distinc- 
tions and  objections  ;  his  temper  calm  and  unad venturous.  He 
was  ready  to  oppose  the  court  to  the  utmost  in  the  House  of 
Lords  and  by  means  of  anonymous  writings :  but  he  was  little 
disposed  to  exchange  his  lordly  repose  for  the  insecure  and 
agitated  life  of  a  conspirator,  to  be  in  the  power  of  accom- 
plices, to  live  in  constant  dread  of  warrants  and  King's  mes- 
sengers, nay,  perhaps  to  end  his  days  on  a  scaffold,  or  to  live 
on  alms  in  some  back  street  of  the  Hague.  He  therefore  let 
fall  some  words  which  plainly  indicated  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  be  privy  to  the  intentions  of  his  more  daring  and  impetuous 
friends.  Sidney  understood  him  and  said  no  more.1 

The  next  application  was  made  to  Danby,  and  had  far  better 
success.  Indeed,  for  his  bold  and  active  spirit  the  danger  and 
the  excitement,  which  were  insupportable  to  the  more  delicately 
organized  mind  of  Halifax,  had  a  strong  fascination.  The 
different  characters  of  the  two  statesmen  were  legible  in  their 
faces.  The  brow,  the  eye,  and  the  mouth  of  Halifax  indicated 
a  powerful  intellect  and  an  exquisite  sense  of  the  ludicrous ; 
but  the  expression  was  that  of  a  sceptic,  of  a  voluptuary,  of  a 
man  not  likely  to  venture  his  all  on  a  single  hazard,  or  to  be 
a  martyr  in  any  cause.  To  those  who  are  acquainted  with  his 
countenance  it  will  not  seem  wonderful  that  the  writer  in  whom 
he  most  delighted  was  Montaigne.2  Danby  was  a  skeleton ; 
and  his  meagre  and  wrinkled,  though  handsome  and  noble, 
face  strongly  expressed  both  the  keenness  of  his  parts  and  the 
restlessness  of  his  ambition.  Already  he  had  once  risen  from 

1  Burnet,  i.  764;  Letter  in  cipher  to  William,  dated  June  18,  1688. 

2  As  to  Montaigne,  see  Halifax's  Letter  to  Cotton.    I  am  not  sure  that  the 
head  of  Halifax  in  Westminster  Abbey  does  not  give  a  more  lively  notion  of 
him  than  any  painting  or  engraving  that  I  have  seen. 


3/0  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

obscurity  to  the  height  of  power.  He  had  then  fallen  head- 
long from  his  elevation.  His  life  had  been  in  danger.  He 
had  passed  years  in  a  prison.  He  was  now  free :  but  this  did 
not  content  him ;  he  wished  to  be  again  great.  Attached  as 
he  was  to  the  Anglican  Church,  hostile  as  he  was  to  the 
French  ascendency,  he  could  not  hope  to  be  great  in  a  court 
swarming  with  Jesuits  and  obsequious  to  the  House  of  Bourbon. 
But,  if  he  bore  a  chief  part  in  a  revolution  which  should  con- 
found all  the  schemes  of  the  Papists,  which  should  put  an  end 
to  the  long  vassalage  of  England,  and  which  should  transfer 
the  regal  power  to  an  illustrious  pair  whom  he  had  united, 
he  might  emerge  from  his  eclipse  with  new  splendour.  The 
Whigs,  whose  animosity  had  nine  years  before  driven  him 
from  office,  would,  on  his  auspicious  reappearance,  join  their 
acclamations  to  the  acclamations  of  his  old  friends  the 
Cavaliers.  Already  there  had  been  a  complete  reconciliation 
between  him  and  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  those  who 
had  formerly  been  managers  of  his  impeachment,  the  Earl  of 
Devonshire.  The  two  noblemen  had  met  at  a  village  in  the 
Peak,  and  had  exchanged  assurances  of  good  will.  Devonshire 
had  frankly  owned  that  the  Whigs  had  been  guilty  of  a  great 
injustice,  and  had  declared  that  they  were  now  convinced  of 
their  error.  Danby,  on  his  side,  had  also  recantations  to  make. 
He  had  once  held,  or  pretended  to  hold,  the  doctrine  of  pas- 
sive obedience  in  the  largest  sense.  Under  his  administration 
and  with  his  sanction,  a  law  had  been  proposed  which,  if  it 
had  been  passed,  would  have  excluded  from  Parliament  and 
office  all  who  refused  to  declare  on  oath  that  they  thought 
resistance  in  every  case  unlawful.  But  his  vigorous  under- 
standing, now  thoroughly  awakened  by  anxiety  for  the  public 
interests  and  for  his  own,  was  no  longer  to  be  duped,  if  indeed 
it  ever  had  been  duped,  by  such  childish  fallacies.  He  at  once 
gave  in  his  own  adhesion  to  the  conspiracy.  He  then  exerted 
himself  to  obtain  the  concurrence  of  Compton,  the  suspended 
Bishop  of  London,  and  succeeded  without  difficulty.  No  prelate 
had  been  so  insolently  and  unjustly  treated  by  the  government 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  371 

as  Compton  ;  nor  had  any  prelate  so  much  to  expect  from  a 
revolution  :  for  he  had  directed  the  education  of  the  Princess 
of  Orange,  and  was  supposed  to  possess  a  large  share  of  her 
confidence.  He  had,  like  his  brethren,  strongly  maintained, 
as  long  as  he  was  not  oppressed,  that  it  was  a  crime  to  resist 
oppression  ;  but,  since  he  had  stood  before  the  High  Com- 
mission, a  new  light  had  broken  in  upon  his  mind.1 

Both  Danby  and  Compton  were  desirous  to  secure  the  assist- 
ance of  Nottingham.  The  whole  plan  was  opened  to  him ;  and 
he  approved  of  it.  But  in  a  few  days  he  began  to  be  unquiet. 
His  mind  was  not  sufficiently  powerful  to  emancipate  itself 
from  the  prejudices  of  education.  He  went  about  from  divine 
to  divine  proposing  in  general  terms  hypothetical  cases  of 
tyranny  and  inquiring  whether  in  such  cases  resistance  would 
be  lawful.  The  answers  which  he  obtained  increased  his 
distress.  He  at  length  told  his  accomplices  that  he  could  go 
no  further  with  them.  If  they  thought  him  capable  of  betray- 
ing them,  they  might  stab  him ;  and  he  should  hardly  blame 
them ;  for,  by  drawing  back  after  going  so  far,  he  had  given 
them  a  kind  of  right  over  his  life.  They  had,  however,  he 
assured  them,  nothing  to  fear  from  him  :  he  would  keep  their 
secret ;  he  could  not  help  wishing  them  success ;  but  his  con- 
science would  not  suffer  him  to  take  an  active  part  in  a  rebel- 
lion. They  heard  his  confession  with  suspicion  and  disdain. 
Sidney,  whose  notions  of  a  conscientious  scruple  were  ex- 
tremely vague,  informed  the  Prince  that  Nottingham  had  taken 
fright.  It  is  due  to  Nottingham,  however,  to  say  that  the 
general  tenor  of  his  life  justifies  us  in  believing  his  conduct 
on  this  occasion  to  have  been  perfectly  honest,  though  most 
unwise  and  irresolute.2 

The  agents  of  the  Prince  had  more  complete  success  with 
Lord  Lumley,  who  knew  himself  to  be,  in  spite  of  the  eminent 

1  See  Danby's  Introduction  to  the  papers  which  he  published  in  1710; 
Burnet,  i.  764. 

2  Burnet,   i.  764;    Sidney  to   the    Prince   of  Orange,  June  30.    1688,   in 
Dalrymple. 


3/2  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

service  which  he  had  performed  at  the  time  of  the  Western 
insurrection,  abhorred  at  Whitehall,  not  only  as  a  heretic  but 
as  a  renegade,  and  who  was  therefore  more  eager  than  most 
of  those  who  had  been  born  Protestants  to  take  arms  in 
defence  of  Protestantism.1 

During  June  the  meetings  of  those  who  were  in  the  secret 
were  frequent.  At  length,  on  the  last  day  of  the  month,  the 
day  on  which  the  Bishops  were  pronounced  not  guilty,  the 
decisive  step  was  taken.  A  formal  invitation,  transcribed  by 
Sidney,  but  drawn  up  by  some  person  more  skilled  than  Sidney 
in  the  art  of  composition,  was  despatched  to  the  Hague.  In 
this  paper  William  was  assured  that  nineteen-twentieths  of  the 
English  people  were  desirous  of  a  change,  and  would  willingly 
join  to  effect  it,  if  only  they  could  obtain  the  help  of  such  a 
force  from  abroad  as  might  secure  those  who  should  rise  in 
arms  from  the  danger  of  being  dispersed  and  slaughtered 
before  they  could  form  themselves  into  anything  like  military 
order.  If  his  Highness  would  appear  in  the  island  at  the  head 
of  some  troops,  tens  of  thousands  would  hasten  to  his  standard. 
He  would  soon  find  himself  at  the  head  of  a  force  greatly 
superior  to  the  whole  regular  army  of  England.  Nor  could 
that  army  be  implicitly  depended  on  by  the  government.  The 
officers  were  discontented ;  and  the  common  soldiers  shared 
that  aversion  to  Popery  which  was  general  in  the  class  from 
which  they  were  taken.  In  the  navy  Protestant  feeling  was 
still  stronger.  It  was  important  to  take  some  decisive  step 
while  things  were  in  this  state.  The  enterprise  would  be  far 
more  arduous  if  it  were  deferred  till  the  King,  by  remodelling 
boroughs  and  regiments,  had  procured  a  Parliament  and  an 
army  on  which  he  could  rely.  The  conspirators,  therefore, 
implored  the  Prince  to  come  among  them  with  as  little  delay 
as  possible.  They  pledged  their  honour  that  they  would  join 
him ;  and  they  undertook  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  as  large 
a  number  of  persons  as  could  safely  be  trusted  with  so  mo- 
mentous and  perilous  a  secret.  On  one  point  they  thought  it 
1  Burnet,  i.  763 ;  Lumley  to  Willianr,  May  31.  1688,  in  Dalrymple. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  373 

their  duty  to  remonstrate  with  his  Highness.  He  had  not 
taken  advantage  of  the  opinion  which  the  great  body  of  the 
English  people  had  formed  respecting  the  late  birth.  He  had, 
on  the  contrary,  sent  congratulations  to  Whitehall,  and  had 
thus  seemed  to  acknowledge  that  the  child  who  was  called 
Prince  of  Wales  was  rightful  heir  of  the  throne.  This  was  a 
grave  error,  and  had  damped  the  zeal  of  many.  Not  one  person 
in  a  thousand  doubted  that  the  boy  was  supposititious ;  and  the 
Prince  would  be  wanting  to  his  own  interests  if  the  suspicious 
circumstances  which  had  attended  the  Queen's  confinement  were 
not  put  prominently  forward  among  his  reasons  for  taking  arms.1 

This  paper  was  signed  in  cipher  by  the  seven  chiefs  of  the 
conspiracy —  Shrewsbury,  Devonshire,  Danby,  Lumley,  Compton, 
Russell,  and  Sidney.  Herbert  undertook  to  be  their  messenger. 
His  errand  was  one  of  no  ordinary  peril.  He  assumed  the  garb 
of  a  common  sailor,  and  in  this  disguise  reached  the  Dutch 
coast  in  safety,  on  the  Friday  after  the  trial  of  the  Bishops. 
He  instantly  hastened  to  the  Prince.  Bentinck  and  Van  Dykvelt 
were  summoned,  and  several  days  were  passed  in  deliberation. 
The  first  result  of  this  deliberation  was  that  the  prayer  for  the 
Prince  of  Wales  ceased  to  be  read  in  the  Princess's  chapel.2 

From  his  wife  William  had  no  opposition  to  apprehend. 
Her  understanding  had  been  completely  subjugated  by  his  ;  and, 
what  is  more  extraordinary,  he  had  won  her  entire  affection. 
He  was  to  her  in  the  place  of  the  parents  whom  she  had  lost 
by  death  and  by  estrangement,  of  the  children  who  had  been 
denied  to  her  prayers,  and  of  the  country  from  which  she  was 
banished.  His  empire  over  her  heart  was  divided  only  with 
her  God.  To  her  father  she  had  probably  never  been  attached : 
she  had  quitted  him  young :  many  years  had  elapsed  since 
she  had  seen  him  ;  and  no  part  of  his  conduct  to  her,  since 
her  marriage,  had  indicated  tenderness  on  his  part,  or  had  been 
calculated  to  call  forth  tenderness  on  hers.  He  had  done  all 
in  his  power  to  disturb  her  domestic  happiness,  and  had 

1  See  the  invitation  at  length  in  Dalrymple. 

2  Sidney's  Letter  to  William,  June  30.  1688;  Avaux  Neg.,  July  Jg.  j|. 


374  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

established  a  system  of  spying,  eavesdropping,  and  tale-bearing 
under  her  roof.  He  had  a  far  greater  revenue  than  any  of  his 
predecessors  had  ever  possessed,  and  allowed  to  her  younger 
sister  thirty  or  forty  thousand  pounds  a  year : l  but  the  heiress 
presumptive  of  his  throne  had  never  received  from  him  the 
smallest  pecuniary  assistance,  and  was  scarcely  able  to  make 
that  appearance  which  became  her  high  rank  among  European 
princesses.  She  had  ventured  to  intercede  with  him  on  behalf 
of  her  old  friend  and  preceptor  Compton,  who,  for  refusing  to 
commit  an  act  of  flagitious  injustice,  had  been  suspended  from 
his  episcopal  functions ;  but  she  had  been  ungraciously  re- 
pulsed.2 From  the  day  on  which  it  had  become  clear  that 
she  and  her  husband  were  determined  not  to  be  parties  to 
the  subversion  of  the  English  constitution,  one  chief  object  of 
the  politics  of  James  had  been  to  injure  them  both.  He  had 
recalled  the  British  regiments  from  Holland.  He  had  con- 
spired with  Tyrconnel  and  with  France  against  Mary's  rights, 
and  had  made  arrangements  for  depriving  her  of  one  at  least 
of  the  three  crowns  to  which,  at  his  death,  she  would  have 
been  entitled.  It  was  now  believed  by  the  great  body  of  his 
people,  and  by  many  persons  high  in  rank  and  distinguished 
by  abilities,  that  he  had  introduced  a  supposititious  Prince  of 
Wales  into  the  royal  family  in  order  to  deprive  her  of  a 
magnificent  inheritance ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
she  partook  of  the  prevailing  suspicion.  That  she  should  love 
such  a  father  was  impossible.  Her  religious  principles,  indeed, 
were  so  strict  that  she  would  probably  have  tried  to  perform 
what  she  considered  as  her  duty,  even  to  a  father  whom  she 
did  not  love.  On  the  present  occasion,  however,  she  judged 
that  the  claim  of  James  to  her  obedience  ought  to  yield  to  a 
claim  more  sacred.  And  indeed  all  divines  and  publicists 
agree  in  this,  that,  when  the  daughter  of  a  prince  of  one  country 
is  married  to  a  prince  of  another  country,  she  is  bound  to 
forget  her  own  people  and  her  father's  house,  and,  in  the  event 
of  a  rupture  between  her  husband  and  her  parents,  to  side 

1  Bonrepaux,  July  £f .  1687.      2  Birch's  Extracts,  in  the  British  Museum. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  375 

with  her  husband.  This  is  the  undoubted  rule  even  when  the 
husband  is  in  the  wrong ;  and  to  Mary  the  enterprise  which 
William  meditated  appeared  not  only  just,  but  holy. 

But,  though  she  carefully  abstained  from  doing  or  saying 
anything  that  could  add  to  his  difficulties,  those  difficulties 
were  serious  indeed.  They  were  in  truth  but  imperfectly 
understood  even  by  some  of  those  who  invited  him  over,  and 
have  been  but  imperfectly  described  by  some  of  those  who 
have  written  the  history  of  his  expedition. 

The  obstacles  which  he  might  expect  to  encounter  on  Eng- 
lish ground,  though  the  least  formidable  of  the  obstacles  which 
stood  in  the  way  of  his  design,  were  yet  serious.  He  felt  that 
it  would  be  madness  in  him  to  imitate  the  example  of  Mon- 
mouth,  to  cross  the  sea  with  a  few  British  adventurers,  and  to 
trust  to  a  general  rising  of  the  population.  It  was  necessary, 
and  it  was  pronounced  necessary  by  all  those  who  invited  him 
over,  that  he  should  carry  an  army  with  him.  Yet  who  could 
answer  for  the  effect  which  the  appearance  of  such  an  army 
might  produce  ?  The  government  was  indeed  justly  odious. 
But  would  the  English  people,  altogether  unaccustomed  to  the 
interference  of  continental  powers  in  English  disputes,  be  in- 
clined to  look  with  favour  on  a  deliverer  who  was  surrounded 
by  foreign  soldiers  ?  If  any  part  of  the  royal  forces  resolutely 
withstood  the  invaders,  would  not  that  part  soon  have  on  its 
side  the  patriotic  sympathy  of  millions  ?  A  defeat  would  be 
fatal  to  the  whole  undertaking.  A  bloody  victory  gained  in  the 
heart  of  the  island  by  the  mercenaries  of  the  States  General 
over  the  Coldstream  Guards  and  the  Buffs  would  be  almost  as 
great  a  calamity  as  a  defeat.  Such  a  victory  would  be  the 
most  cruel  wound  ever  inflicted  on  the  national  pride  of  one 
of  the  proudest  of  nations.  The  crown  so  won  would  never 
be  worn  in  peace  or  security.  The  hatred  with  which  the 
High  Commission  and  the  Jesuits  were  regarded  would  give 
place  to  the  more  intense  hatred  which  would  be  inspired  by  the 
alien  conquerors  ;  and  many,  who  had  hitherto  contemplated 
the  power  of  France  with  dread  and  loathing,  would  say  that, 


376  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

if  a  foreign  yoke  must  be  borne,   there  was  less  ignominy 
in  submitting  to  France  than  in  submitting  to  Holland. 

These  considerations  might  well  have  made  William  uneasy, 
even  if  all  the  military  means  of  the  United  Provinces  had 
been  at  his  absolute  disposal.  But  in  truth  it  seemed  very 
doubtful  whether  he  would  he  able  to  obtain  the  assistance  of 
a  single  battalion.  Of  all  the  difficulties  with  which  he  had  to 
struggle,  the  greatest,  though  little  noticed  by  English  histo- 
rians, arose  from  the  constitution  of  the  Batavian  republic.  No 
great  society  has  ever  existed  during  a  long  course  of  years 
under  a  polity  so  inconvenient.  The  States  General  could  not 
make  war  or  peace,  could  not  conclude  any  alliance  or  levy 
any  tax,  without  the  consent  of  the  States  of  every  province. 
The  States  of  a  province  could  not  give  such  consent  without 
the  consent  of  every  municipality  which  had  a  share  in  the 
representation.  Every  municipality  was,  in  some  sense,  a  sover- 
eign state,  and,  as  such,  claimed  the  right  of  communicating 
directly  with  foreign  ambassadors,  and  of  concerting  with  them 
the  means  of  defeating  schemes  on  which  other  municipalities 
were  intent.  In  some  town  councils  the  party  which  had, 
during  several  generations,  regarded  the  influence  of  the  Stadt- 
holders  with  jealousy  had  great  power.  At  the  head  of  this 
party  were  the  magistrates  of  the  noble  city  of  Amsterdam, 
which  was  then  at  the  height  of  prosperity.  They  had,  ever 
since  the  peace  of  Nimeguen,  kept  up  a  friendly  correspond- 
ence with  Louis  through  the  instrumentality  of  his  able  and 
active  envoy  the  Count  of  Avaux.  Propositions  brought  for- 
ward by  the  Stadtholder  as  indispensable  to  the  security  of 
the  commonwealth,  sanctioned  by  all  the  provinces  except 
Holland,  and  sanctioned  by  seventeen  of  the  eighteen  town 
councils  of  Holland,  had  repeatedly  been  negatived  by  the 
single  voice  of  Amsterdam.  The  only  constitutional  remedy 
in  such  cases  was  that  deputies  from  the  cities  which  were 
agreed  should  pay  a  visit  to  the  city  which  dissented,  for 
the  purpose  of  expostulation.  The  number  of  deputies  was 
unlimited  :  they  might  continue  to  expostulate  as  long  as  they 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  377 

thought  fit ;  and  meanwhile  all  their  expenses  were  defrayed  by 
the  obstinate  community  which  refused  to  yield  to  their  argu- 
ments. This  absurd  mode  of  coercion  had  once  been  tried 
with  success  on  the  little  town  of  Gorkum,  but  was  not  likely 
to  produce  much  effect  on  the  mighty  and  opulent  Amsterdam, 
renowned  throughout  the  world  for  its  haven  bristling  with  in- 
numerable masts,  its  canals  bordered  by  stately  rnansions,  its 
gorgeous  hall  of  state,  walled,  roofed,  and  floored  with  polished 
marble,  its  warehouses  filled  with  the  most  costly  productions  of 
Ceylon  and  Surinam,  and  its  Exchange  resounding  with  the 
endless  hubbub  of  all  the  languages  spoken  by  civilized  men.1 
The  disputes  between  the  majority  which  supported  the 
Stadtholder  and  the  minority  headed  by  the  magistrates  of 
Amsterdam  had  repeatedly  run  so  high  that  bloodshed  had 
seemed  to  be  inevitable.  On  one  occasion  the  Prince  had 
attempted  to  bring  the  refractory  deputies  to  punishment  as 
traitors.  On  another  occasion  the  gates  of  Amsterdam  had 
been  barred  against  him,  and  troops  had  been  raised  to  defend 
the  privileges  of  the  municipal  council.  That  the  rulers  of 
this  great  city  would  ever  consent  to  an  expedition  offensive  in 
the  highest  degree  to  Louis  whom  they  courted,  and  likely  to 
aggrandize  the  House  of  Orange  which  they  abhorred,  was  not 
likely.  Yet,  without  their  consent,  such  an  expedition  could 
not  legally  be  undertaken.  To  quell  their  opposition  by  main 
force  was  a  course  from  which,  in  different  circumstances,  the 
resolute  and  daring  Stadtholder  would  not  have  shrunk.  But 
at  that  moment  it  was  most  important  that  he  should  carefully 
avoid  every  act  which  could  be  represented  as  tyrannical.  He 
could  not  venture  to  violate  the  fundamental  laws  of  Holland 
at  the  very  moment  at  which  he  was  drawing  the  sword  against 
his  father-in-law  for  violating  the  fundamental  laws  of  England. 
The  violent  subversion  of  one  free  constitution  would  have 
been  a  strange  prelude  to  the  violent  restoration  of  another.2 

*  Avaux  Neg.,  §^5:  1683. 

2  As  to  the  relation  in  which  the  Stadtholder  and  the  city  of  Amsterdam 
stood  towards  each  other,  see  Avaux,  passim. 


3/8  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

There  was  yet  another  difficulty  which  has  been  too  little 
noticed  by  English  writers,  but  which  was  never  for  a  moment 
absent  from  William's  mind.  In  the  expedition  which  he 
meditated  he  could  succeed  only  by  appealing  to  the  Protestant 
feeling  of  England,  and  by  stimulating  that  feeling  till  it 
became,  for  a  time,  the  dominant  and  almost  the  exclusive 
sentiment  of  the  nation.  This  would  indeed  have  been  a  very 
simple  course,  had  the  end  of  all  his  politics  been  to  effect  a 
revolution  in  our  island  and  to  reign  there.  But  he  had  in 
view  an  ulterior  end  which  could  be  obtained  only  by  the  help 
of  princes  sincerely  attached  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  He  was 
desirous  to  unite  the  Empire,  the  Catholic  King,  and  the 
Holy  See,  with  England  and  Holland,  in  a  league  against  the 
French  ascendency.  It  was  therefore  necessary  that,  while 
striking  the  greatest  blow  ever  struck  in  defence  of  Protestant- 
ism, he  should  yet  contrive  not  to  lose  the  good  will  of  govern- 
ments which  regarded  Protestantism  as  a  deadly  heresy. 

Such  were  the  complicated  difficulties  of  this  great  under- 
taking. Continental  statesmen  saw  a  "part  of  those  difficulties ; 
British  statesmen  another  part.  One  capacious  and  powerful 
mind  alone  took  them  all  in  at  one  view,  and  determined  to 
surmount  them  all.  It  was  no  easy  thing  to  subvert  the  English 
government  by  means  of  a  foreign  army  without  galling  the 
national  pride  of  Englishmen.  It  was  no  easy  thing  to  obtain 
from  that  Batavian  faction  which  regarded  France  with  par- 
tiality, and  the  House  of  Orange  with  aversion,  a  decision  in 
favour  of  an  expedition  which  would  confound  all  the  schemes 
of  France,  and  raise  the  House  of  Orange  to  the  height  of 
greatness.  It  was  no  easy  thing  to  lead  enthusiastic  Protestants 
on  a  crusade  against  Popery  with  the  good  wishes  of  almost 
all  Popish  governments  and  of  the  Pope  himself.  Yet  all  these 
things  William  effected.  All  his  objects,  even  those  which 
appeared  most  incompatible  with  each  other,  he  attained  com- 
pletely and  at  once.  The'  whole  history  of  ancient  and  of 
modern  times  records  no  other  such  triumph  of  statesmanship. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  379 

(c)  REVOLUTION  OF  1688 

In  order  that  the  questions  which  had  been  in  dispute 
between  the  Stuarts  and  the  nation  might  never  again  be 
stirred,  it  was  determined  that  the  instrument  by  which  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  were  called  to  the  throne, 
and  by  which  the  order  of  succession  was  settled,  should  set 
forth,  in  the  most  distinct  and  solemn  manner,  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  constitution.  This  instrument,  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Declaration  of  Right,  was  prepared  by  a 
committee,  of  which  Somers  was  chairman.  The  fact  that  the 
low-born  young  barrister  was  appointed  to  so  honourable  and 
important  a  post  in  a  Parliament  filled  with  able  and  expe- 
rienced men,  only  ten  days  after  he  had  spoken  in  the  House 
of  Commons  for  the  first  time,  sufficiently  proves  the  superiority 
of  his  abilities.  In  a  few  hours  the  Declaration  was  framed 
and  approved  by  the  Commons.  The  Lords  assented  to  it  with 
some  amendments  of  no  great  importance.1 

The  Declaration  began  by  recapitulating  the  crimes  and 
errors  which  had  made  a  revolution  necessary.  James  had 
invaded  the  province  of  the  legislature ;  had  treated  modest 
petitioning  as  a  crime ;  had  oppressed  the  Church  by  means 
of  an  illegal  tribunal ;  had,  without  the  consent  of  Parliament, 
levied  taxes  and  maintained  a  standing  army  in  time  of  peace ; 
had  violated  the  freedom  of  election,  and  perverted  the  course 
of  justice.  Proceedings  which  could  lawfully  be  questioned 
only  in  Parliament  had  been  made  the  subjects  of  prosecution 
in  the  King's  Bench.  Partial  and  corrupt  juries  had  been 
returned :  excessive  bail  had  been  required  from  prisoners : 
excessive  fines  had  been  imposed :  barbarous  and  unusual 
punishments  had  been  inflicted  :  the  estates  of  accused  persons 
had  been  granted  away  before  conviction.  He,  by  whose 
authority  these  things  had  been  done,  had  abdicated  the 
government.  The  Prince  of  Orange,  whom  God  had  made 

1  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  4.  8.  II.  12;  Lords'  Journals,  Feb.  9.  n. 
12.  1688. 


380  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  glorious  instrument  of  delivering  the  nation  from  super- 
stition and  tyranny,  had  invited  the  Estates  of  the  Realm  to 
meet  and  to  take  counsel  together  for  the  securing  of  religion, 
of  law,  and  of  freedom.  The  Lords  and  Commons,  having 
deliberated,  had  resolved  that  they  would  first,  after  the 
example  of  their  ancestors,  assert  the  ancient  rights  and  liberties 
of  England.  Therefore  it  was  declared  that  the  dispensing 
power,  as  lately  assumed  and  exercised,  had  no  legal  existence ; 
that,  without  grant  of  Parliament,  no  money  could  be  ex- 
acted by  the  sovereign  from  the  subject ;  that,  without  consent, 
of  Parliament,  no  standing  army  could  be  kept  up  in  time  of 
peace.  The  right  of  subjects  to  petition,  the  right  of  electors 
to  choose  representatives  freely,  the  right  of  the  legislature  to 
freedom  of  debate,  the  right  of  the  nation  to  a  pure  and  mer- 
ciful administration  of  justice  according  to  the  spirit  of  our 
mild  laws,  were  solemnly  affirmed.  All  these  things  ttte  Con- 
vention claimed,  in  the  name  of  the  whole  nation,  as  the 
undoubted  inheritance  of  Englishmen.  Having  thus  vindicated 
the  principles  of  the  constitution,  the  Lords  and  Commons,  in 
the  entire  confidence  that  the  deliverer  would  hold  sacred  the 
laws  and  liberties  which  he  had  saved,  resolved  that  William 
and  Mary,  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange,  should  be  declared 
King  and  Queen  of  England  for  their  joint  and  separate  lives, 
and  that,  during  their  joint  lives,  the  administration  of  the 
government  should  be  in  the  Prince  alone.  After  them  the 
crown  was  settled  on  the  posterity  of  Mary,  then  on  Anne 
and  her  posterity,  and  then  on  the  posterity  of  William. 

By  this  time  the  wind  had  ceased  to  blow  from  the  west. 
The  ship  in  which  the  Princess  of  Orange  had  embarked  lay 
off  Margate  on  the  eleventh  of  February,  and,  on  the  following 
morning,  anchored  at  Greenwich.1  She  was  received  with  many 
signs  of  joy  and  affection  :  but  her  demeanour  shocked  the 
Tories,  and  was  not  thought  faultless  even  by  the  Whigs.  A 
young  woman,  placed,  by  a  destiny  as  mournful  and  awful  as 
that  which  brooded  over  the  fabled  houses  of  Labdacus  and 

1  London  Gazette,  Feb.  14.  i68|;  Van  Citters,  Feb.  \\. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  381 

Pelops,  in  such  a  situation  that  she  could  not,  without  violating 
her  duty  to  her  God,  her  husband,  and  her  country,  refuse  to 
take  her  seat  on  the  throne  from  which  her  father  had  just  been 
hurled,  should  have  been  sad,  or  at  least  serious.  Mary  was 
not  merely  in  high,  but  in  extravagant,  spirits.  She  entered 
Whitehall,  it  was  asserted,  with  a  girlish  delight  at  being 
mistress  of  so  fine  a  house,  ran  about  the  rooms,  peeped  into 
the  closets,  and  examined  the  quilt  of  the  state  bed,  without 
seeming  to  remember  by  whom  those  magnificent  apartments 
had  last  been  occupied.  Burnet,  who  had,  till  then,  thought 
her  an  angel  in  human  form,  could  not,  on  this  occasion, 
refrain  from  blaming  her.  He  was  the  more  astonished 
because,  when  he  took  leave  of  her  at  the  Hague,  she  had, 
though  fully  convinced  that  she  was  in  the  path  of  duty,  been 
deeply  dejected.  To  him,  as  to  her  spiritual  guide,  she  after- 
wards explained  her  conduct.  William  had  written  to  inform 
her  that  some  of  those  who  had  tried  to  separate  her  interest 
from  his  still  continued  their  machinations :  they  gave  it  out 
that  she  thought  herself  wronged ;  and,  if  she  wore  a  gloomy 
countenance,  the  report  would  be  confirmed.  He  therefore 
intreated  her  to  make  her  first  appearance  with  an  air  of 
cheerfulness.  Her  heart,  she  said,  was  far  indeed  from  cheer- 
ful ;  but  she  had  done  her  best ;  and,  as  she  was  afraid  of  not 
sustaining  well  a  part  which  was  uncongenial  to  her  feelings, 
she  had  overacted  it.  Her  deportment  was  the  subject  of  much 
spiteful  prose  and  verse :  it  lowered  her  in  the  opinion  of 
some  whose  esteem  she  valued ;  nor  did  the  world  know,  till 
she  was  beyond  the  reach  of  praise  and  censure,  that  the  con- 
duct which  had  brought  on  her  the  reproach  of  levity  and 
insensibility  was  really  a  signal  instance  of  that  perfect  disinter- 
estedness and  self-devotion  of  which  man  seems  to  be  incapable, 
but  which  is  sometimes  found  in  woman.1 

On  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  the  thirteenth  of  February, 
the  court  of  Whitehall  and  all  the  neighbouring  streets  were 

1  Duchess    of    Marlborough's    Vindication ;     Review    of  the   Vindication ; 
Burnet,  i.  781.  825.  and  Dartmouth's  note;  Evelyn's  Diary,  Feb.  21.  i6Sj|. 


382  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

filled  with  gazers.  The  magnificent  Banqueting  House,  the 
masterpiece  of  Inigo,  embellished  by  masterpieces  of  Rubens, 
had  been  prepared  for  a  great  ceremony.  The  walls  were 
lined  by  the  yeomen  of  the  guard.  Near  the  northern  door,  on 
the  right  hand,  a  large  number  of  Peers  had  assembled.  On 
the  left  were  the  Commons  with  their  Speaker,  attended  by  the 
mace.  The  southern  door  opened :  and  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Orange,  side  by  side,  entered,  and  took  their  place  under 
the  canopy  of  state. 

Both  Houses  approached,  bowing  low.  William  and  Mary 
advanced  a  few  steps.  Halifax  on  the  right,  and  Powle  on  the 
left,  stood  forth;  and  Halifax  spoke.  The  Convention,  he  said, 
had  agreed  to  a  resolution  which  he  prayed  Their  Highnesses 
to  hear.  They  signified  their  assent ;  and  the  clerk  of  the 
House  of  Lords  read,  in  a  loud  voice,  the  Declaration  of 
Right.  When  he  had  concluded,  Halifax,  in  the  name  of  all 
the  Estates  of  the  Realm,  requested  the  Prince  and  Princess 
to  accept  the  crown. 

William,  in  his  own  name  and  in  that  of  his  wife,  answered 
that  the  crown  was,  in  their  estimation,  the  more  valuable 
because  it  was  presented  to  them  as  a  token  of  the  confidence 
of  the  nation.  "We  thankfully  accept,"  he  said,  "what  you 
have  offered  us."  Then,  for  himself,  he  assured  them  that  the 
laws  of  England,  which  he  had  once  already  vindicated,  should 
be  the  rules  of  his  conduct,  that  it  should  be  his  study  to 
promote  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom,  and  that,  as  to  the  means 
of  doing  so,  he  should  constantly  recur  to  the  advice  of  the 
Houses,  and  should  be  disposed  to  trust  their  judgment 
rather  than  his  own.1  These  words  were  received  with  a  shout  of 
joy  which  was  heard  in  the  streets  below,  and  was  instantly  an- 
swered by  huzzas  from  many  thousands  of  voices.  The  Lords 
and  Commons  then  reverently  retired  from  the  Banqueting 

1  Lords'  and  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  14.  i68| ;  Van  Citters,  Feb.  \\. 
Van  Citters  puts  into  William's  mouth  stronger  expressions  of  respect  for 
the  authority  of  Parliament  than  appear  in  the  Journals  ;  but  it  is  clear  from 
what  Powle  said  that  the  report  in  the  Journals  was  not  strictly  accurate. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  383 

House  and  went  in  procession  to  the  great  gate  of  White- 
hall, where  the  heralds  and  pursuivants  were  waiting  in  their 
gorgeous  tabards.  All  the  space  as  far  as  Charing  Cross  was 
one  sea  of  heads.  The  kettledrums  struck  up ;  the  trumpets 
pealed  :  and  Garter  King  at  Arms,  in  a  loud  voice,  proclaimed 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  King  and  Queen  of 
England,  charged  all  Englishmen  to  bear,  from  that  moment, 
faith  and  true  allegiance  to  the  new  sovereigns,  and  besought 
God,  who  had  already  wrought  so  signal  a  deliverance  for  our 
Church  and  nation,  to  bless  William  and  Mary  with  a  long 
and  happy  reign.1 

Thus  was  consummated  the  English  Revolution.  When  we 
compare  it  with  those  revolutions  which  have,  during  the  last 
sixty  years,  overthrown  so  many  ancient  governments,  we 
cannot  but  be  struck  by  its  peculiar  character.  Why  that 
character  was  so  peculiar  is  sufficiently  obvious,  and  yet  seems 
not  to  have  been  always  understood  either  by  eulogists  or 
by  censors. 

The  continental  revolutions  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries  took  place  in  countries  where  all  trace  of  the  limited 
monarchy  of  the  middle  ages  had  long  been  effaced.  The 
right  of  the  prince  to  make  laws  and  to  levy  money  had, 
during  many  generations,  been  undisputed.  His  throne  was 
guarded  by  a  great  regular  army.  His  administration  could 
not,  without  extreme  peril,  be  blamed  even  in  the  mildest 
terms.  His  subjects  held  their  personal  liberty  by  no  other 
tenure  than  his  pleasure.  Not  a  single  institution  was  left 
which  had,  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  man,  afforded 
efficient  protection  to  the  subject  against  the  utmost  excess  of 
tyranny.  Those  great  councils  which  had  once  curbed  the 
regal  power  had  sunk  into  oblivion.  Their  composition  and 
their  privileges  were  known  only  to  antiquaries.  We  cannot 
wonder,  therefore,  that,  when  men  who  had  been  thus  ruled 
succeeded  in  wresting  supreme  power  from  a  government  which 

1  London  Gazette,  Feb.  14. 168$;  Lords'  and  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  13  ; 
Van  Citters,  Feb.  $%;  Evelyn,  Feb.  21. 


384  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

they  had  long  in  secret  hated,  they  should  have  been  impatient 
to  demolish  and  unable  to  construct,  that  they  should  have 
been  fascinated  by  every  specious  novelty,  that  they  should 
have  proscribed  every  title,  ceremony,  and  phrase  associated 
with  the  old  system,  and  that,  turning  away  with  disgust  from 
their  own  national  precedents  and  traditions,  they  should  have 
sought  for  principles  of  government  in  the  writings  of  theorists, 
or  aped,  with  ignorant  and  ungraceful  affectation,  the  patriots 
of  Athens  and  Rome.  As  little  can  we  wonder  that  the  violent 
action  of  the  revolutionary  spirit  should  have  been  followed  by 
reaction  equally  violent,  and  that  confusion  should  speedily 
have  engendered  despotism  sterner  than  that  from  which  it 
had  sprung. 

Had  we  been  in  the  same  situation ;  had  Strafford  succeeded 
in  his  favourite  scheme  of  Thorough  ;  had  he  formed  an  army 
as  numerous  and  as  well  disciplined  as  that  which,  a  few  years 
later,  was  formed  by  Cromwell ;  had  a  series  of  judicial  deci- 
sions, similar  to  that  which  was  pronounced  by  the  Exchequer 
Chamber  in  the  case  of  shipmoney,  transferred  to  the  crown 
the  right  of  taxing  the  people ;  had  the  Star  Chamber  and 
the  High  Commission  continued  to  fine,  mutilate,  and  imprison 
every  man  who  dared  to  raise  his  voice  against  the  govern- 
ment ;  had  the  press  been  as  completely  enslaved  here  as  at 
Vienna  or  at  Naples ;  had  our  Kings  gradually  drawn  to  them- 
selves the  whole  legislative  power ;  had  six  generations  of 
Englishmen  passed  away  without  a  single  session  of  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  had  we  then  at  length  risen  up  in  some  moment 
of  wild  excitement  against  our  masters,  what  an  outbreak 
would  that  have  been !  With  what  a  crash,  heard  and  felt  to 
the  farthest  ends  of  the  world,  would  the  whole  vast  fabric  of 
society  have  fallen !  How  many  thousands  of  exiles,  once  the 
most  prosperous  and  the  most  refined  members  of  this  great 
community,  would  have  begged  their  bread  in  continental 
cities,  or  have  sheltered  their  heads  under  huts  of  bark  in  the 
uncleared  forests  of  America !  How  often  should  we  have  seen 
the  pavement  of  London  piled  up  in  barricades,  the  houses 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  385 

dinted  with  bullets,  the  gutters  foaming  with  blood !  How 
many  times  should  we  have  rushed  wildly  from  extreme  to 
extreme,  sought  refuge  from  anarchy  in  despotism,  and  been 
again  driven  by  despotism  into  anarchy !  How  many  years  of 
blood  and  confusion  would  it  have  cost  us  to  learn  the  very 
rudiments  of  political  science !  How  many  childish  theories 
would  have  duped  us !  How  many  rude  and  ill-poised  con- 
stitutions should  we  have  set  up,  only  to  see  them  tumble 
down !  Happy  would  it  have  been  for  us  if  a  sharp  discipline 
of  half  a  century  had  sufficed  to  educate  us  into  a  capacity  of 
enjoying  true  freedom. 

These  calamities  our  Revolution  averted.  It  was  a  revolution 
strictly  defensive,  and  had  prescription  and  legitimacy  on  its 
side.  Here,  and  here  only,  a  limited  monarchy  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  had  come  down  unimpaired  to  the  seventeenth 
century.  Our  parliamentary  institutions  were  in  full  vigour. 
The  main  principles  of  our  government  were  excellent.  They 
were  not,  indeed,  formally  and  exactly  set  forth  in  a  single 
written  instrument ;  but  they  were  to  be  found  scattered  over 
our  ancient  and  noble  statutes ;  and,  what  was  of  far  greater 
moment,  they  had  been  engraven  on  the  hearts  of  Englishmen 
during  four  hundred  years.  That,  without  the  consent  of  the 
representatives  of  the  nation,  no  legislative  act  could  be  passed, 
no  tax  imposed,  no  regular  soldiery  kept  up ;  that  no  man  could 
be  imprisoned,  even  for  a  day,  by  the  arbitrary  will  of  the  sov- 
ereign ;  that  no  tool  of  power  could  plead  the  royal  command 
as  a  justification  for  violating  any  right  of  the  humblest  subject, 
were  held,  both  by  Whigs  and  Tories,  to  be  fundamental  laws 
of  the  realm.  A  realm  of  which  these  were  the  fundamental 
laws  stood  in  no  need  of  a  new  constitution. 

But,  though  a  new  constitution  was  not  needed,  it  was  plain 
that  changes  were  required.  The  misgovernment  of  the  Stuarts, 
and  the  troubles  which  that  misgovernment  had  produced,  suffi- 
ciently proved  that  there  was  somewhere  a  defect  in  our  polity ; 
and  that  defect  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Convention  to  discover 
and  to  supply. 


386  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Some  questions  of  great  moment  were  still  open  to  dispute. 
Our  constitution  had  begun  to  exist  in  times  when  statesmen 
were  not  much  accustomed  to  frame  exact  definitions.  Anom- 
alies, therefore,  inconsistent  with  its  principles  and  dangerous 
to  its  very  existence,  had  sprung  up  almost  imperceptibly, 
and  not  having,  during  many  years,  caused  any  serious  incon- 
venience, had  gradually  acquired  the  force  of  prescription. 
The  remedy  for  these  evils  was  to  assert  the  rights  of  the 
people  in  such  language  as  should  terminate  all  controversy, 
and  to  declare  that  no  precedent  could  justify  any  violation  of 
those  rights. 

When  this  had  been  done  it  would  be  impossible  for  our 
rulers  to  misunderstand  the  law :  but,  unless  something  more 
were  done,  it  was  by  no  means  improbable  that  they  might 
violate  it.  Unhappily  the  Church  had  long  taught  the  nation 
that  hereditary  monarchy,  alone  among  our  institutions,  was 
divine  and  inviolable  ;  that  the  right  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  a  share  in  the  legislative  power  was  a  right  merely  human, 
but  that  the  right  of  the  King  to  the  obedience  of  his  people 
was  from  above ;  that  the  Great  Charter  was  a  statute  which 
might  be  repealed  by  those  who  had  made  it,  but  that  the  rule 
which  called  the  princes  of  the  blood  royal  to  the  throne  in 
order  of  succession  was  of  celestial  origin,  and  that  any  Act 
of  Parliament  inconsistent  with  that  rule  was  a  nullity.  It  is 
evident  that,  in  a  society  in  which  such  superstitions  prevail, 
constitutional  freedom  must  ever  be  insecure.  A  power  which 
is  regarded  merely  as  the  ordinance  of  man  cannot  be  an  effi- 
cient check  on  a  power  •  which  is  regarded  as  the  ordinance 
of  God.  It  is  vain  to  hope  that  laws,  however  excellent,  will 
permanently  restrain  a  King  who,  in  his  own  opinion,  and  in 
the  opinion  of  a  great  part  of  his  people,  has  an  authority 
infinitely  higher  in  kind  than  the  authority  which  belongs  to 
those  laws.  To  deprive  royalty  of  these  mysterious  attributes, 
and  to  establish  the  principle  that  Kings  reigned  by  a  right 
in  no  respect  differing  from  the  right  by  which  freeholders 
chose  knights  of  the  shire,  or  from  the  right  by  which  Judges 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  387 

granted  writs  of  Habeas  Corpus,  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  security  of  our  liberties. 

Thus  the  Convention  had  two  great  duties  to  perform.  The 
first  was  to  clear  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm  from  ambi- 
guity. The  second  was  to  eradicate  from  the  minds,  both  of 
the  governors  and  of  the  governed,  the  false  and  pernicious 
notion  that  the  royal  prerogative  was  something  more  sublime 
and  holy  than  those  fundamental  laws.  The  former  object 
was  attained  by  the  solemn  recital  and  claim  with  which  the 
Declaration  of  Right  commences ;  the  latter  by  the  resolution 
which  pronounced  the  throne  vacant,  and  invited  William  and 
Mary  to  fill  it. 

The  change  seems  small.  Not  a  single  flower  of  the  crown 
was  touched.  Not  a  single  new  right  was  given  to  the  people. 
The  whole  English  law,  substantive  and  adjective,  was,  in  the 
judgment  of  all  the  greatest  lawyers,  of  Holt  and  Treby,  of 
Maynard  and  Somers,  almost  exactly  the  same  after  the  Revo- 
lution as  before  it.  Some  controverted  points  had  been  de- 
cided according  to  the  sense  of  the  best  jurists ;  and  there  had 
been  a  slight  deviation  from  the  ordinary  course  of  succession. 
This  was  all ;  and  this  was  enough. 

As  our  Revolution  was  a  vindication  of  ancient  rights,  so  it 
was  conducted  with  strict  attention  to  ancient  formalities.  In 
almost  every  word  and  act  may  be  discerned  a  profound  rever- 
ence for  the  past.  The  Estates  of  the  Realm  deliberated  in 
the  old  halls  and  according  to  the  old  rules.  Powle  was  con- 
ducted to  his  chair  between  his  mover  and  his  seconder  with 
the  accustomed  forms.  The  Serjeant  with  his  mace  brought 
up  the  messengers  of  the  Lords  to  the  table  of  the  Commons ; 
and  the  three  obeisances  were  duly  made.  The  conference 
was  held  with  all  the  antique  ceremonial.  On  one  side  of  the 
table,  in  the  Painted  Chamber,  the  managers  of  the  Lords  sat 
covered  and  robed  in  ermine  and  gold.  The  managers  of  the 
Commons  stood  bareheaded  on  the  other  side.  The  speeches 
present  an  almost  ludicrous  contrast  to  the  revolutionary  oratory 
of  every  other  country.  Both  the  English  parties  agreed  in 


388  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

treating  with  solemn  respect  the  ancient  constitutional  tradi- 
tions of  the  state.  The  only  question  was,  in  what  sense  those 
traditions  were  to  be  understood.  The  assertors  of  liberty  said 
not  a  word  about  the  natural  equality  of  men  and  the  inalien- 
able sovereignty  of  the  people,  about  Harmodius  or  Timoleon, 
Brutus  the  elder  or  Brutus  the  younger.  When  they  were 
told  that,  by  the  English  law,  the  crown,  at  the  moment  of  a 
demise,  must  descend  to  the  next  heir,  they  answered  that,  by 
the  English  law,  a  living  man  could  have  no  heir.  When  they 
were  told  that  there  was  no  precedent  for  declaring  the  throne 
vacant,  they  produced  from  among  the  records  in  the  Tower 
a  roll  of  parchment,  near  three  hundred  years  old,  on  which, 
in  quaint  characters  and  barbarous  Latin,  it  was  recorded  that 
the  Estates  of  the  Realm  had  declared  vacant  the  throne  of 
a  perfidious  and  tyrannical  Plantagenet.  When  at  length  the 
dispute  had  been  accommodated,  the  new  sovereigns  were 
proclaimed  with  the  old  pageantry.  All  the  fantastic  pomp  of 
heraldry  was  there  —  Clarencieux  and  Norroy,  Portcullis  and 
Rouge  Dragon,  the  trumpets,  the  banners,  the  grotesque 
coats  embroidered  with  lions  and  lilies.  The  title  of  King  of 
France,  assumed  by  the  conqueror  of  Cressy,  was  not  omitted 
in  the  royal  style.  To  us,  who  have  lived  in  the  year  1848,  it 
may  seem  almost  an  abuse  of  terms  to  call  a  proceeding  con- 
ducted with  so  much  deliberation,  with  so  much  sobriety,  and 
with  such  minute  attention  to  prescriptive  etiquette,  by  the 
terrible  name  of  Revolution. 

And  yet  this  revolution,  of  all  revolutions  the  least  violent, 
has  been  of  all  revolutions  the  most  beneficent.  It  finally 
decided  the  great  question  whether  the  popular  element  which 
had,  ever  since  the  age  of  Fitzwalter  and  De  Montfort,  been 
found  in  the  English  polity,  should  be  destroyed  by  the  monar- 
chical element,  or  should  be  suffered  to  develop  itself  freely, 
and  to  become  dominant.  The  strife  between  the  two  prin- 
ciples had  been  long,  fierce,  and  doubtful.  It  had  lasted 
through  four  reigns.  It  had  produced  seditions,  impeachments, 
rebellions,  battles,  sieges,  proscriptions,  judicial  massacres. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  389 

Sometimes  liberty,  sometimes  royalty,  had  seemed  to  be  on  the 
point  of  perishing.  During  many  years  one  half  of  the  energy 
of  England  had  been  employed  in  counteracting  the  other  half. 
The  executive  power  and  the  legislative  power  had  so  effec- 
tually impeded  each  other  that  the  state  had  been  of  no  account 
in  Europe.  The  King  at  Arms,  who  proclaimed  William  and 
Mary  before  Whitehall  Gate,  did  in  truth  announce  that  this 
great  struggle  was  over ;  that  there  was  entire  union  between 
the  throne  and  the  Parliament ;  that  England,  long  dependent 
and  degraded,  was  again  a  power  of  the  first  rank ;  that  the 
ancient  laws  by  which  the  prerogative  was  bounded  would  thence- 
forth be  held  as  sacred  as  the  prerogative  itself,  and  would  be 
followed  out  to  all  their  consequences ;  that  the  executive  ad- 
ministration would  be  conducted  in  conformity  with  the  sense 
of  the  representatives  of  the  nation  ;  and  that  no  reform,  which 
the  two  Houses  should,  after  mature  deliberation,  propose,  would 
be  obstinately  withstood  by  the  sovereign.  The  Declaration  of 
Right,  though  it  made  nothing  law  which  had  not  been  law 
before,  contained  the  germ  of  the  law  which  gave  religious  free- 
dom to  the  Dissenter,  of  the  law  which  secured  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Judges,  of  the  law  which  limited  the  duration  of 
Parliaments,  of  the  law  which  placed  the  liberty  of  the  press 
under  the  protection  of  juries,  of  the  law  which  prohibited 
the  slave  trade,  of  the  law  which  abolished  the  sacramental 
test,  of  the  law  which  relieved  the  Roman  Catholics  from  civil 
disabilities,  of  the  law  which  reformed  the  representative  sys- 
tem, of  every  good  law  which  has  been  passed  during  more 
than  a  century  and  a  half,  of  every  good  law  which  may  here- 
after, in  the  course  of  ages,  be  found  necessary  to  promote  the 
public  weal,  and  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  public  opinion. 

The  highest  eulogy  which  can  be  pronounced  on  the  revo- 
lution of  1688  is  this,  that  it  was  our  last  revolution.  Several 
generations  have  now  passed  away  since  any  wise  and  patriotic 
Englishman  has  meditated  resistance  to  the  established  gov- 
ernment. In  all  honest  and  reflecting  minds  there  is  a  con- 
viction, daily  strengthened  by  experience,  that  the  means  of 


390  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

effecting  every  improvement  which  the  constitution  requires 
may  be  found  within  the  constitution  itself. 

Now,  if  ever,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  whole 
importance  of  the  stand  which  was  made  by  our  forefathers 
against  the  House  of  Stuart.  All  around  us  the  world  is  con- 
vulsed by  the  agonies  of  great  nations.  Governments  which 
lately  seemed  likely  to  stand  during  ages  have  been  on  a  sudden 
shaken  and  overthrown.  The  proudest  capitals  of  Western 
Europe  have  streamed  with  civil  blood.  All  evil  passions,  the 
thirst  of  gain  and  the  thirst  of  vengeance,  the  antipathy  of 
class  to  class,  the  antipathy  of  race  to  race,  have  broken  loose 
from  the  control  of  divine  and  human  laws.  Fear  and  anxiety 
have  clouded  the  faces  and  depressed  the  hearts  of  millions. 
Trade  has  been  suspended,  and  industry  paralyzed.  The  rich 
have  become  poor ;  and  the  poor  have  become  poorer.  Doc- 
trines hostile  to  all  sciences,  to  all  arts,  to  all  industry,  to  all 
domestic  charities,  doctrines  which,  if  carried  into  effect,  would, 
in  thirty  years,  undo  all  that  thirty  centuries  have  done  for 
mankind,  and  would  make  the  fairest  provinces  of  France  and 
Germany  as  savage  as  Congo  or  Patagonia,  have  been  avowed 
from  the  tribune  and  defended  by  the  sword.  Europe  has 
been  threatened  with  subjugation  by  barbarians,  compared  with 
whom  the  barbarians  who  marched  under  Attila  and  Alboin 
were  enlightened  and  humane.  The  truest  friends  of  the 
people  have  with  deep  sorrow  owned  that  interests  more  pre- 
cious than  any  political  privileges  were  in  jeopardy,  and  that  it 
might  be  necessary  to  sacrifice  even  liberty  in  order  to  save 
civilization.  Meanwhile  in  our  island  the  regular  course  of 
government  has  never  been  for  a  day  interrupted.  The  few 
bad  men  who  longed  for  license  and  plunder  have  not  had  the 
courage  to  confront  for  one  moment  the  strength  of  a  loyal 
nation,  rallied  in  firm  array  round  a  parental  throne.  And,  if 
it  be  asked  what  has  made  us  to  differ  from  others,  the  answer 
is  that  we  never  lost  what  others  are  wildly  and  blindly  seek- 
ing to  regain.  It  is  because  we  had  a  preserving  revolution  in 
the  seventeenth  century  that  we  have  not  had  a  destroying 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  391 

revolution  in  the  nineteenth.  It  is  because  we  have  had  free- 
dom in  the  midst  of  servitude  that  we  have  order  in  the 
midst  of  anarchy.  For  the  authority  of  law,  for  the  security  of 
property,  for  the  peace  of  our  streets,  for  the  happiness  of  our 
homes,  our  gratitude  is  due,  under  Him  who  raises  and  pulls 
down  nations  at  his  pleasure,  to  the  Long  Parliament,  to  the 
Convention,  and  to  William  of  Orange. 

(d)  WILLIAM  AND  MARY  IN  ENGLAND 

Unhappily  sarcasm  and  invective  directed  against  William 
were  but  too  likely  to  find  favourable  audience.  Each  of  the 
two  great  parties  had  its  own  reasons  for  being  dissatisfied  with 
him  ;  and  there  were  some  complaints  in  which  both  parties 
joined.  His  manners  gave  almost  universal  offence.  He  was 
in  truth  far  better  qualified  to  save  a  nation  than  to  adorn  a 
court.  In  the  highest  parts  of  statesmanship,  he  had  no  equal 
among  his  contemporaries.  He  had  formed  plans  not  inferior 
in  grandeur  and  boldness  to  those  of  Richelieu,  and  had  carried 
them  into  effect  with  a  tact  and  wariness  worthy  of  Mazarin. 
Two  countries,  the  seats  of  civil  liberty  and  of  the  Reformed 
Faith,  had  been  preserved  by  his  wisdom  and  courage  from 
extreme  perils.  Holland  he  had  delivered  from  foreign  and 
England  from  domestic  foes.  Obstacles  apparently  insurmount- 
able had  been  interposed  between  him  and  the  ends  on  which 
he  was  intent ;  and  those  obstacles  his  genius  had  turned  into 
stepping-stones.  Under  his  dexterous  management  the  hered- 
itary enemies  of  his  house  had  helped  him  to  mount  a  throne ; 
and  the  persecutors  of  his  religion  had  helped  him  to  rescue 
his  religion  from  persecution.  Fleets  and  armies,  collected  to 
withstand  him,  had,  without  a  struggle,  submitted  to  his  orders. 
Factions  and  sects,  divided  by  mortal  antipathies,  had  recog- 
nized him  as  their  common  head.  Without  carnage,  without 
devastation,  he  had  won  a  victory  compared  with  which  all  the 
victories  of  Gustavus  and  Turenne  were  insignificant.  In  a 
few  weeks  he  had  changed  the  relative  position  of  all  the  states 


392  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

in  Europe,  and  had  restored  the  equilibrium  which  the  pre- 
ponderance of  one  power  had  destroyed.  Foreign  nations  did 
ample  justice  to  his  great  qualities.  In  every  Continental 
country  where  Protestant  congregations  met,  fervent  thanks 
were  offered  to  God,  who,  from  among  the  progeny  of  His 
servants,  Maurice,  the  deliverer  of  Germany,  and  William,  the 
deliverer  of  Holland,  had  raised  up  a  third  deliverer,  the  wisest 
and  mightiest  of  all.  At  Vienna,  at  Madrid,  nay  at  Rome, 
the  valiant  and  sagacious  heretic  was  held  in  honour  as  the 
chief  of  the  great  confederacy  against  the  House  of  Bourbon; 
and  even  at  Versailles  the  hatred  which  he  inspired  was  largely 
mingled  with  admiration. 

Here  he  was  less  favourably  judged.  In  truth,  our  ances- 
tors saw  him  in  the  worst  of  all  lights.  By  the  French,  the 
Germans,  and  the  Italians,  he  was  contemplated  at  such  a 
distance  that  only  what  was  great  could  be  discerned,  and 
that  small  blemishes  were  invisible.  To  the  Dutch  he  was 
brought  close :  but  he  was  himself  a  Dutchman.  In  his  inter- 
course with  them  he  was  seen  to  the  best  advantage :  he  was 
perfectly  at  his  ease  with  them ;  and  from  among  them  he 
had  chosen  his  earliest  and  dearest  friends.  But  to  the 
English  he  appeared  in  a  most  unfortunate  point  of  view. 
He  was  at  once  too  near  to  them  and  too  far  from  them. 
He  lived  among  them,  so  that  the  smallest  peculiarity  of 
temper  or  manner  could  not  escape  their  notice.  Yet  he  lived 
apart  from  them,  and  was  to  the  last  a  foreigner  in  speech, 
tastes,  and  habits. 

One  of  the  chief  functions  of  our  Sovereigns  had  long  been 
to  preside  over  the  society  of  the  capital.  That  function  Charles 
the  Second  had  performed  with  immense  success.  His  easy 
bow,  his  good  stories,  his  style  of  dancing  and  playing  tennis, 
the  sound  of  his  cordial  laugh,  were  familiar  to  all  London. 
One  day  he  was  seen  among  the  elms  of  Saint  James's  Park 
chatting  with  Dryden  about  poetry.1  Another  day  his  arm 

1  See  the  account  given  in  Spence's  Anecdotes  of  the  Origin  of  Dryden's 
Medal. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  393 

was  on  Tom  Durfey's  shoulder ;  and  his  Majesty  was  taking 
a  second,  while  his  companion  sang  "  Phillida,  Phillida,"  or, 
"To  horse,  brave  boys!  to  Newmarket  —  to  horse!  M1  James, 
with  much  less  vivacity  and  good  nature,  was  accessible,  and, 
to  people  who  did  not  cross  him,  civil.  But  of  this  sociable- 
ness  William  was  entirely  destitute.  He  seldom  came  forth 
from  his  closet ;  and,  when  he  appeared  in  the  public  rooms, 
he  stood  among  the  crowd  of  courtiers  and  ladies,  stern  and 
abstracted,  making  no  jest  and  smiling  at  none.  His  freezing 
look,  his  silence,  the  dry  and  concise  answers  which  he  uttered 
when  he  could  keep  silence  no  longer,  disgusted  noblemen 
and  gentlemen  who  had  been  accustomed  to  be  slapped  on 
the  back  by  their  royal  masters,  called  Jack  or  Harry,  congrat- 
ulated about  race  cups  or  rallied  about  actresses.  The  women 
missed  the  homage  due  to  their  sex.  They  observed  that  the 
King  spoke  in  a  somewhat  imperious  tone  even  to  the  wife 
to  whom  he  owed  so  much,  and  whom  he  sincerely  loved  and 
esteemed.2  They  were  amused  and  shocked  to  see  him,  when 
the  Princess  Anne  dined  with  him,  and  when  the  first  green 
peas  of  the  year  were  put  on  the  table,  devour  the  whole  dish 
without  offering  a  spoonful  to  Her  Royal  Highness ;  and  they 
pronounced  that  this  great  soldier  and  politician  was  no  better 
than  a  Low  Dutch  bear.8 

1  Guardian,  No.  67. 

2  There  is  abundant  proof  that  William,  though  a  very  affectionate,  was 
not  always  a  polite  husband.    But  no  credit  is  due  to  the  story  contained  in 
the  letter  which  Dalrymple  was  foolish  enough  to  publish  as  Nottingham's  in 
1773,  and  wise  enough  to  omit  in  the  edition  of  1790.    How  any  person  who 
knew  anything  of  the  history  of  those  times  could  be  so  strangely  deceived, 
it  is  not  easy  to  understand,  particularly  as  the  handwriting  bears  no  resem- 
blance to  Nottingham's,  with  which   Dalrymple  was  familiar.   The  letter  is 
evidently  a  common  newsletter,  written  by  a  scribbler,  who  had  never  seen  the 
King  and  Queen  except  at  some  public  place,  and  whose  anecdotes  of  their 
private  life  rested  on  no  better  authority  than  coffee-house  gossip. 

8  Ronquillo ;  Kurnet,  ii.  2 ;  Duchess  of  Marlborough's  Vindication.  In  a 
pastoral  dialogue  between  Philander  and  Palaemon,  published  in  1691,  the 
dislike  with  which  women  of  fashion  regarded  William  is  mentioned. 
Philander  says : 

"  Rut  man  mcthinks  his  reason  should  recall, 
Nor  let  frail  woman  work  his  second  fall." 


394  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

One  misfortune,  which  was  imputed  to  him  as  a  crime,  was 
his  bad  English.  He  spoke  our  language,  but  not  well.  His 
accent  was  foreign  :  his  diction  was  inelegant ;  and  his  vocab- 
ulary seems  to  have  been  no  larger  than  was  necessary  for  the 
transaction  of  business.  To  the  difficulty  which  he  felt  in 
expressing  himself,  and  to  his  consciousness  that  his  pronun- 
ciation was  bad,  must  be  partly  ascribed  the  taciturnity  and 
the  short  answers  which  gave  so  much  offence.  Our  literature 
he  was  incapable  of  enjoying  or  of  understanding.  He  never 
once,  during  his  whole  reign,  showed  himself  at  the  theatre.1 
The  poets  who  wrote  Pindaric  verses  in  his  praise  complained 
that  their  flights  of  sublimity  were  beyond  his  comprehension.2 
Those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  panegyrical  odes  of  that 
age  will  perhaps  be  of  opinion  that  he  did  not  lose  much  by 
his  ignorance. 

It  is  true  that  his  wife  did  her  best  to  supply  what  was 
wanting,  and  that  she  was  excellently  qualified  to  be  the  head 
of  the  Court.  She  was  English  by  birth,  and  English  also  in 
her  tastes  and  feelings.  Her  face  was  handsome,  her  port 
majestic,  her  temper  sweet  and  lively,  her  manners  affable 
and  graceful.  Her  understanding,  though  very  imperfectly 
cultivated,  was  quick.  There  was  no  want  of  feminine  wit 
and  shrewdness  in  her  conversation ;  and  her  letters  were 
so  well  expressed  that  they  deserved  to  be  well  spelt.  She 
took  much  pleasure  in  the  lighter  kinds  of  literature,  and 
did  something  towards  bringing  books  into  fashion  among 
ladies  of  quality.  The  stainless  purity  of  her  private  life  and 
the  strict  attention  which  she  paid  to  her  religious  duties 
were  the  more  respectable,  because  she  was  singularly  free 
from  censoriousness,  and  discouraged  scandal  as  much  as 
vice.  In  dislike  of  backbiting,  indeed,  she  and  her  husband 

1  Tutchin's  Observator  of  November  16.  1706. 

2  Prior,  who  was  treated  by  William  with  much  kindness,  and  who  was 
very  grateful  for  it,  informs  us  that  the  King  did  not  understand  poetical 
eulogy.     The  passage  is  in    a  highly  curious  manuscript,  the  property  of 
Lord  Lansdowne. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  395 

cordially  agreed ;  but  they  showed  their  dislike  in  different 
and  in  very  characteristic  ways.  William  preserved  profound 
silence,  and  gave  the  tale-bearer  a  look  which,  as  was  said 
by  a  person  who  had -once  encountered  it,  and  who  took  good 
care  never  to  encounter  it  again,  made  your  story  go  back 
down  your  throat.1  Mary  had  a  way  of  interrupting  tattle 
about  elopements,  duels,  and  play-debts  by  asking  the  tattlers, 
very  quietly  yet  significantly,  whether  they  had  ever  read  her 
favourite  sermon,  Doctor  Tillotson's  on  Evil  Speaking.  Her 
charities  were  munificent  and  judicious ;  and,  though  she 
made  no  ostentatious  display  of  them,  it  was  known  that  she 
retrenched  from  her  own  state  in  order  to  relieve  Protestants 
whom  persecution  had  driven  from  France  and  Ireland,  and 
who  were  starving  in  "the  garrets  of  London.  So  amiable  was 
her  conduct,  that  she  was  generally  spoken  of  with  esteem 
and  tenderness  by  the  most  respectable  of  those  who  disap- 
proved of  the  manner  in  which  she  had  been  raised  to  the 
throne,  and  even  of  those  who  refused  to  acknowledge  her  as 
Queen.  In  the  Jacobite  lampoons  of  that  time,  lampoons 
which,  in  virulence  and  malignity,  far  exceed  anything  that 
our  age  has  produced,  she  was  not  often  mentioned  with 
severity.  Indeed,  she  sometimes  expressed  her  surprise  at 
finding  that  libellers  who  respected  nothing  else  respected  her 
name.  God,  she  said,  knew  where  her  weakness  lay.  She 

1  Memoires  originaux  sur  le  regne  et  la  cour  de  Frederic  I.,  Roi  de  Prusse, 
Merits  par  Christophe  Comte  de  Dohna.  Berlin,  1833.  It  is  strange  that  this 
interesting  volume  should  be  almost  unknown  in  England.  The  only  copy 
that  I  have  ever  seen  of  it  was  kindly  given  to  me  by  Sir  Robert  Adair.  "  Le 
Roi,"  Dohna  says,  "  avoit  une  autre  qualite  tres  estimable,  qui  est  celle  de 
n'aimer  point  qu'on  rendit  de  mauvais  offices  a  personne  par  des  railleries." 
The  Marquis  de  la  Foret  tried  to  entertain  His  Majesty  at  the  expense  of  an 
English  nobleman.  "  Ce  prince,"  says  Dohna,  "  prit  son  air  severe,  et,  le 
regardant  sans  mot  dire,  lui  fit  rentrer  les  paroles  dans  le  ventre.  Le  Marquis 
m'en  fit  ses  plaintes  quelques  heures  apres.  'J'ai  mal  pris  ma  bisque,'  dit-il ; 
'j'ai  cru  faire  1'agreable  sur  le  chapitre  de  Milord  .  .  .  mais  j'ai  trouve  a  qui 
parler,  et  j'ai  attrape  un  regard  du  roi  qui  m'a  fait  passer  1'envie  de  rire.'" 
Dohna  supposed  that  William  might  be  less  sensitive  about  the  character  of  a 
Frenchman,  and  tried  the  experiment  But,  says  he,  "j'eus  a  peu  pres  le 
meme  sort  que  M.  de  la  Foret." 


396  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

was  too  sensitive  to  abuse  and  calumny :  He  had  mercifully 
spared  her  a  trial  which  was  beyond  her  strength ;  and  the 
.best  return  which  she  could  make  to  Him  was  to  discounte- 
nance all  malicious  reflections  on  the  characters  of  others. 
Assured  that  she  possessed  her  husband's  entire  confidence 
and  affection,  she  turned  the  edge  of  his  sharp  speeches 
sometimes  by  soft  and  sometimes  by  playful  answers,  and 
employed  all  the  influence  which  she  derived  from  her  many 
pleasing  qualities  to  gain  the  hearts  of  the  people  for  him.1 

(e)  THE  TOLERATION  ACT 

Of  all  the  Acts  that  have  ever  been  passed  by  Parliament, 
the  Toleration  Act  is  perhaps  that  which  most  strikingly  illus- 
trates the  peculiar  vices  and  the  peculiar  excellences  of  English 
legislation.  The  science  of  Politics  bears  in  one  respect  a  close 
analogy  to  the  science  of  Mechanics.  The  mathematician  can 
easily  demonstrate  that  a  certain  power,  applied  by  means  of 
a  certain  lever  or  of  a  certain  system  of  pulleys,  will  suffice  to 
raise  a  certain  weight.  But  his  demonstration  proceeds  on  the 
supposition  that  the  machinery  is  such  as  no  load  will  bend 

1  Compare  the  account  of  Mary  by  the  Whig  Burnet  with  the  mention  of 
her  by  the  Tory  Evelyn  in  his  Diary,  March  8.  169^,  and  with  what  is  said  of 
her  by  the  Nonjuror  who  wrote  the  Letter  to  Archbishop  Tenison  on  her 
death  in  1695.  The  impression  which  the  bluntness  and  reserve  of  William 
and  the  grace  and  gentleness  of  Mary  had  made  on  the  populace  may  be 
traced  in  the  remains  of  the  street  poetry  of  that  time.  The  following  conjugal 
dialogue  may  still  be  seen  on  the  original  broadside : 

Then  bespoke  Mary,  our  most  royal  Queen, 

"  My  gracious  King  William,  where  are  you  going  ?  " 

He  answered  her  quickly,  "  I  count  him  no  man 

That  telleth  his  secret  unto  a  woman." 

The  Queen  with  a  modest  behaviour  replied, 

"  I  wish  that  kind  Providence  may  be  thy  guide, 

To  keep  thee  from  danger,  my  sovereign  Lord, 

The  which  will  the  greatest  of  comfort  afford." 

These  lines  are  in  an  excellent  collection  formed  by  Mr.  Richard  Heber, 
and  now  the  property  of  Mr.  Broderip,  by  whom  it  was  kindly  lent  to  me.  In 
one  of  the  most  savage  Jacobite  pasquinades  of  1689,  William  is  described  as 

A  churle  to  his  wife,  which  she  makes  but  a  jest. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  397 

or  break.  If  the  engineer,  who  has  to  lift  a  great  mass  of  real 
granite  by  the  instrumentality  of  real  timber  and  real  hemp, 
should  absolutely  rely  on  the  propositions  which  he  finds  in 
treatises  on  Dynamics,  and  should  make  no  allowance  for  the 
imperfection  of  his  materials,  his  whole  apparatus  of  beams, 
wheels,  and  ropes  would  soon  come  down  in  ruin,  and,  with  all 
his  geometrical  skill,  he  would  be  found  a  far  inferior  builder 
to  those  painted  barbarians  who,  though  they  never  heard  of 
the  parallelogram  of  forces,  managed  to  pile  up  Stonehenge. 
What  the  engineer  is  to  the  mathematician,  the  active  states- 
man is  to  the  contemplative  statesman.  It  is  indeed  most 
important  that  legislators  and  administrators  should  be  versed 
in  the  philosophy  of  government,  as  it  is  most  important  that 
the  architect,  who  has  to  fix  an  obelisk  on  its  pedestal,  or  to 
hang  a  tubular  bridge  over  an  estuary,  should  be  versed  in  the 
philosophy  of  equilibrium  and  motion.  But,  as  he  who  has 
actually  to  build  must  bear  in  mind  many  things  never  noticed 
by  D'Alembert  and  Euler,  so  must  he  who  has  actually  to 
govern  be  perpetually  guided  by  considerations  to  which  no 
allusion  can  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Adam  Smith  or 
Jeremy  Bentham.  The  perfect  lawgiver  is  a  just  temper 
between  the  mere  man  of  theory,  who  can  see  nothing  but 
general  principles,  and  the  mere  man  of  business,  who  can 
see  nothing  but  particular  circumstances.  Of  lawgivers  in 
whom  the  speculative  element  has  prevailed  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  practical,  the  world  has  during  the  last  eighty  years 
been  singularly  fruitful.  To  their  wisdom  Europe  and  America 
have  owed  scores  of  abortive  constitutions,  scores  of  constitu- 
tions which  have  lived  just  long  enough  to  make  a  miserable 
noise,  and  have  then  gone  off  in  convulsions.  But  in  the 
English  legislation  the  practical  element  has  always  predom- 
inated, and  not  seldom  unduly  predominated,  over  the  specula- 
tive. To  think  nothing  of  symmetry  and  much  of  convenience ; 
never  to  remove  an  anomaly  merely  because  it  is  an  anomaly; 
never  to  innovate  except  when  some  grievance  is  felt ;  never 
to  innovate  except  so  far  as  to  get  rid  of  the  grievance ;  never 


398  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  lay  down  any  proposition  of  wider  extent  than  the  partic- 
ular case  for  which  it  is  necessary  to  provide ;  these  are  the 
rules  which  have,  from  the  age  of  John  to  the  age  of  Victoria, 
generally  guided  the  deliberations  of  our  two  hundred  and  fifty 
Parliaments.  Our  national  distaste  for  whatever  is  abstract  in 
political  science  amounts  undoubtedly  to  a  fault.  Yet  it  is, 
perhaps,  a  fault  on  the  right  side.  That  we  have  been  far  too 
slow  to  improve  our  laws  must  be  admitted.  But,  though  in 
other  countries  there  may  have  occasionally  been  more  rapid 
progress,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  name  any  other  country  in 
which  there  has  been  so  little  retrogression. 

The  Toleration  Act  approaches  very  rtear  to  the  idea  of  a 
great  English  law.  To  a  jurist,  versed  in  the  theory  of  legis- 
lation, but  not  intimately  acquainted  with  the  temper  of  the 
sects  and  parties  into  which  the  nation  was  divided  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution,  that  Act  would  seem  to  be  a  mere  chaos  of 
absurdities  and  contradictions.  It  will  not  bear  to  be  tried 
by  sound  general  principles.  Nay,  it  will  not  bear  to  be  tried 
by  any  principle,  sound  or  unsound.  The  sound  principle 
undoubtedly  is,  that  mere  theological  error  ought  not  to  be 
punished  by  the  civil  magistrate.  This  principle  the  Tolera- 
tion Act  not  only  does  not  recognize,  but  positively  disclaims. 
Not  a  single  one  of  the  cruel  laws  enacted  against  Noncon- 
formists by  the  Tudors  or  the  Stuarts  is  repealed.  Persecution 
continues  to  be  the  general  rule.  Toleration  is  the  exception. 
Nor  is  this  all.  The  freedom  which  is  given  to  conscience  is 
given  in  the  most  capricious  manner.  A  Quaker,  by  making 
a  declaration  of  faith  in  general  terms,  obtains  the  full  benefit 
of  the  Act  without  signing  one  of  the  thirty-nine  Articles.  An 
Independent  minister,  who  is  perfectly  willing  to  make  the 
declaration  required  from  the  Quaker,  but  who  has  doubts 
about  six  or  seven  of  the  Articles,  remains  still  subject  to  the 
penal  laws.  Howe  is  liable  to  punishment  if  he  preaches  before 
he  has  solemnly  declared  his  assent  to  the  Anglican  doctrine 
touching  the  Eucharist.  Penn,  who  altogether  rejects  the 
Eucharist,  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  preach  without  making  any 
declaration  whatever  on  the  subject. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  399 

These  are  some  of  the  obvious  faults  which  must  strike 
every  person  who  examines  the  Toleration  Act  by  that  standard 
of  just  reason  which  is  the  same  in  all  countries  and  in  all 
ages.  But  these  very  faults  may  perhaps  appear  to  be  merits, 
when  we  take  into  consideration  the  passions  and  prejudices 
of  those  for  whom  the  Toleration  Act  was  framed.  This  law, 
abounding  with  contradictions  which  every  smatterer  in  polit- 
ical philosophy  can  detect,  did  what  a  law  framed  by  the 
utmost  skill  of  the  greatest  masters  of  political  philosophy 
might  have  failed  to  do.  That  the  provisions  which  have  been 
recapitulated  are  cumbrous,  puerile,  inconsistent  with  each 
other,  inconsistent  with  the  true  theory  of  religious  liberty, 
must  be  acknowledged.  All  that  can  be  said  in  their  defence 
is  this  :  that  they  removed  a  vast  mass  of  evil  without  shocking 
a  vast  mass  of  prejudice ;  that  they  put  an  end,  at  once  and  for 
ever,  without  one  division  in  either  House  of  Parliament,  with- 
out one  riot  in  the  streets,  with  scarcely  one  audible  murmur 
even  from  the  classes  most  deeply  tainted  with  bigotry,  to  a 
persecution  which  had  raged  during  four  generations,  which 
had  broken  innumerable  hearts,  which  had  made  innumerable 
firesides  desolate,  which  had  filled  the  prisons  with  men  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy,  which  had  driven  thousands 
of  those  honest,  diligent,  and  god-fearing  yeomen  and  artisans, 
who  are  the  true  strength  of  a  nation,  to  seek  a  refuge  beyond 
the  ocean  among  the  wigwams  of  red  Indians  and  the  lairs 
of  panthers.  Such  a  defence,  however  weak  it  may  appear  to 
some  shallow  speculators,  will  probably  be  thought  complete 
by  statesmen. 

The  English,  in  1689,  were  by  no  means  disposed  to  admit 
the  doctrine  that  religious  error  ought  to  be  left  unpunished. 
That  doctrine  was  just  then  more  unpopular  than  it  had  ever 
been.  For  it  had,  only  a  few  months  before,  been  hypocritically 
put  forward  as  a  pretext  for  persecuting  the  Established  Church, 
for  trampling  on  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  realm,  for  con- 
fiscating freeholds,  for  treating  as  a  crime  the  modest  exercise 
of  the  right  of  petition.  If  a  bill  had  then  been  drawn  up 
granting  entire  freedom  of  conscience  to  all  Protestants,  it  may 


400  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

be  confidently  affirmed  that  Nottingham  would  never  have 
introduced  such  a  bill ;  that  all  the  bishops,  Burnet  included, 
would  have  voted  against  it ;  that  it  would  have  been  denounced, 
Sunday  after  Sunday,  from  ten  thousand  pulpits,  as  an  insult 
to  God  and  to  all  Christian  men,  and  as  a  license  to  the  worst 
heretics  and  blasphemers ;  that  it  would  have  been  condemned 
almost  as  vehemently  by  Bates  and  Baxter  as  by  Ken  and 
Sherlock  ;•  that  it  would  have  been  burned  by  the  mob  in  half 
the  market  places  of  England ;  that  it  would  never  have 
become  the  law  of  the  land,  and  that  it  would  have  made  the 
very  name  of  toleration  odious  during  many  years  to  the 
majority  of  the  people.  And  yet,  if  such  a  bill  had  been 
passed,  what  would  it  have  effected  beyond  what  was  effected 
by  the  Toleration  Act  ? 

It  is  true  that  the  Toleration  Act  recognized  persecution  as 
the  rule,  and  granted  liberty  of  conscience  only  as  the  excep- 
tion. But  it  is  equally  true  that  the  rule  remained  in  force  only 
against  a  few  hundreds  of  Protestant  dissenters,  and  that  the 
benefit  of  the  exceptions  extended  to  hundreds  of  thousands. 

It  is  true  that  it  was  in  theory  absurd  to  make  Howe  sign 
thirty-four  or  thirty-five  of  the  Anglican  articles  before  he  could 
preach,  and  to  let  Penn  preach  without  signing  one  of  those 
articles.  But  it  is  equally  true  that,  under  this  arrangement, 
both  Howe  and  Penn  got  as  entire  liberty  to  preach  as  they 
could  have  had  under  the  most  philosophical  code  that  Beccaria 
or  Jefferson  could  have  framed. 

The  progress  of  the  bill  was  easy.  Only  one  amendment  of 
grave  importance  was  proposed.  Some  zealous  churchmen  in 
the  Commons  suggested  that  it  might  be  desirable  to  grant 
the  toleration  only  for  a  term  of  seven  years,  and  thus  to  bind 
over  the  Nonconformists  to  good  behaviour.  But  this  suggestion 
was  so  unfavourably  received  that  those  who  made  it  did  not 
venture  to  divide  the  House.1 

The  King  gave  his  consent  with  hearty  satisfaction  :  the 
bill  became  law ;  and  the  Puritan  divines  thronged  to  the 

1  Commons'  Journals,  May  17.  1689. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  401 

Quarter  Sessions  of  every  county  to  swear  and  sign.  Many  of 
them  probably  professed  their  assent  to  the  Articles  with  some 
tacit  reservations.  But  the  tender  conscience  of  Baxter  would 
not  suffer  him  to  qualify,  till  he  had  put  on  record  an  expla- 
nation of  the  sense  in  which  he  understood  every  proposition 
which  seemed  to  him  to  admit  of  misconstruction.  The 
instrument  delivered  by  him  to  the  Court  before  which  he  took 
the  oaths  is  still  extant,  and  contains  two  passages  of  peculiar 
interest.  He  declared  that  his  approbation  of  the  Athanasian 
Creed  was  confined  to  that  part  which  was  properly  a  Creed, 
and  that  he  did  not  mean  to  express  any  assent  to  the  damna- 
tory clauses.  He  also  declared  that  he  did  not,  by  signing  the 
article  which  anathematizes  all  who  maintain  that  there  is  any 
other  salvation  than  through  Christ,  mean  to  condemn  those 
who  entertain  a  hope  that  sincere  and  virtuous  unbelievers 
may  be  admitted  to  partake  in  the  benefits  of  Redemption. 
Many  of  the  dissenting  clergy  of  London  expressed  their 
concurrence  in  these  charitable  sentiments.1 

(/)  THE  RELIEF  OF  LONDONDERRY 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  success  and  plenty,  the  Enniskilleners 
were  tortured  by  a  cruel  anxiety  for  Londonderry.  They  were 
bound  to  the  defenders  of  that  city,  not  only  by  religious  and 
national  sympathy,  but  by  common  interest.  For  there  could 
be  no  doubt  that,  if  Londonderry  fell,  the  whole  Irish  army 
would  instantly  march  in  irresistible  force  upon  Lough  Erne. 
Yet  what  could  be  done  ?  Some  brave  men  were  for  making 
a  desperate  attempt  to  relieve  the  besieged  city;  but  the  odds 
were  too  great.  Detachments,  however,  were  sent  which  infested 
the  rear  of  the  blockading  army,  cut  off  supplies,  and,  on  one 
occasion,  carried  away  the  horses  of  three  entire  troops  of 
cavalry.2  Still  the  line  of  posts  which  surrounded  London- 
derry by  land  remained  unbroken.  The  river  was  still  strictly 

1  Sense  of  the  subscribed   articles   by  the   Ministers  of   London,   1690; 
Calamy's  Historical  Additions  to  Baxter's  Life. 
8  Hamilton's  True  Relation. 


402  SELECTIONS  FROM  JMACAULAY 

closed  and  guarded.  Within  the  walls  the  distress  had  become 
extreme.  So  early  as  the  eighth  of  June  horseflesh  was  almost 
the  only  meat  which  could  be  purchased ;  and  of  horseflesh 
the  supply  was  scanty.  It  was  necessary  to  make  up  the 
deficiency  with  tallow ;  and  even  tallow  was  doled  out  with  a 
parsimonious  hand. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  June  a  gleam  of  hope  appeared.  The 
sentinels  on  the  top  of  the  Cathedral  saw  sails  nine  miles  off 
in  the  bay  of  Lough  Foyle.  Thirty  vessels  of  different  sizes 
were  counted.  Signals  were  made  from  the  steeples  and 
returned  from  the  mast  heads,  but  were  imperfectly  understood 
on  both  sides.  At  last  a  messenger  from  the  fleet  eluded  the 
Irish  sentinels,  dived  under  the  boom,  and  informed  the 
garrison  that  Kirke  had  arrived  from  England  with  troops, 
arms,  ammunition,  and  provisions,  to  relieve  the  city.1 

In  Londonderry  expectation  was  at  the  height :  but  a  few 
hours  of  feverish  joy  were  followed  by  weeks  of  misery.  Kirke 
thought  it  unsafe  to  make  any  attempt,  either  by  land  or  by 
water,  on  the  lines  of  the  besiegers,  and  retired  to  the  entrance 
of  Lough  Foyle,  where,  during  several  weeks,  he  lay  inactive. 

And  now  the  pressure  of  famine  became  every  day  more 
severe.  A  strict  search  was  made  in  all  the  recesses  of  all  the 
houses  of  the  city ;  and  some  provisions,  which  had  been 
concealed  in  cellars  by  people  who  had  since  died  or  made 
their  escape,  were  discovered  and  carried  to  the  magazines. 
The  stock  of  cannon  balls  was  almost  exhausted ;  and  their 
place  was  supplied  by  brickbats  coated  with  lead.  Pestilence 
began,  as  usual,  to  make  its  appearance  in  the  train  of  hunger. 
Fifteen  officers  died  of  fever  in  one  day.  The  Governor,  Baker, 
was  among  those  who  sank  under  the  disease.  His  place  was 
supplied  by  Colonel  John  Mitchelburne.2 

Meanwhile    it  was   known  at    Dublin    that  Kirke  and  his 

squadron  were  on  the  coast  of  Ulster.   The  alarm  was  great 

at  the   Castle.    Even  before  this  news   arrived,    Avaux   had 

given  it  as  his  opinion  that  Richard  Hamilton  was  unequal  to 

1  Walker.  2  Walker ;  Mackenzie. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  403 

the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  It  had  therefore  been  resolved 
that  Rosen  should  take  the  chief  command.  He  was  now  sent 
down  with  all  speed.1 

On  the  nineteenth  of  June  he  arrived  at  the  headquarters 
of  the  besieging  army.  At  first  he  attempted  to  undermine 
the  walls  ;  but  his  plan  was  discovered  ;  and  he  was  compelled 
to  abandon  it  after  a  sharp  fight,  in  which  more  than  a  hundred 
of  his  men  were  slain.  Then  his  fury  rose  to  a  strange  pitch. 
He,  an  old  soldier,  a  Marshal  of  France  in  expectancy,  trained 
in  the  school  of  the  greatest  generals,  accustomed,  during 
many  years,  to  scientific  war,  to  be  baffled  by  a  mob  of  country 
gentlemen,  farmers,  shopkeepers,  who  were  protected  only  by 
a  wall  which  any  good  engineer  would  at  once  have  pronounced 
untenable !  He  raved,  he  blasphemed,  in  a  language  of  his 
own,  made  up  of  all  the  dialects  spoken  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Atlantic.  He  would  raze  the  city  to  the  ground :  he  would 
spare  no  living  thing ;  no,  not  the  young  girls  ;  not  the  babies 
at  the  breast.  As  to  the  leaders,  death  was  too  light  a  punish- 
ment for  them :  he  would  rack  them,  he  would  roast  them 
alive.  In  his  rage  he  ordered  a  shell  to  be  flung  into  the  town 
with  a  letter  containing  a  horrible  menace.  He  would,  he  said, 
gather  into  one  body  all  the  Protestants  who  had  remained  at 
their  homes  between  Charlemont  and  the  sea,  old  men,  women, 
children,  many  of  them  near  in  blood  and  affection  to  the 
defenders  of  Londonderry.  No  protection,  whatever  might  be 
the  authority  by  which  it  had  been  given,  should  be  respected. 
The  multitude  thus  brought  together  should  be  driven  under 
the  walls  of  Londonderry,  and  should  there  be  starved  to  death 
in  the  sight  of  their  countrymen,  their  friends,  their  kinsmen. 
This  was  no  idle  threat.  Parties  were  instantly  sent  out  in  all 
directions  to  collect  victims.  At  dawn,  on  the  morning  of  the 
second  of  July,  hundreds  of  Protestants,  who  were  charged 
with  no  crime,  who  were  incapable  of  bearing  arms,  and  many 
of  whom  had  protections  granted  by  James,  were  dragged  to 
the  gates  of  the  city.  It  was  imagined  that  the  piteous  sight 

1  Avaux,  June  ££.  1689. 


404  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

would  quell  the  spirit  of  the  colonists.  But  the  only  effect 
was  to  rouse  that  spirit  to  still  greater  energy.  An  order  was 
immediately  put  forth  that  no  man  should  utter  the  word 
Surrender  on  pain  of  death ;  and  no  man  uttered  that  word. 
Several  prisoners  of  high  rank  were  in  the  town.  Hitherto  they 
had  been  well  treated,  and  had  received  as  good  rations  as 
were  measured  out  to  the  garrison.  They  were  now  closely  con- 
fined. A  gallows  was  erected  on  one  of  the  bastions ;  and  a 
message  was  conveyed  to  Rosen,  requesting  him  to  send  a  con- 
fessor instantly  to  prepare  his  friends  for  death.  The  prisoners 
in  great  dismay  wrote  to  the  savage  Livonian,  but  received  no 
answer.  They  then  addressed  themselves  to  their  countryman, 
Richard  Hamilton.  They  were  willing,  they  said,  to  shed  their 
blood  for  their  King ;  but  they  thought  it  hard  to  die  the  igno- 
minious death  of  thieves  in  consequence  of  the  barbarity  of 
their  own  companions  in  arms.  Hamilton,  though  a  man  of 
lax  principles,  was  not  cruel.  He  had  been  disgusted  by  the 
inhumanity  of  Rosen,  but,  being  only  second  in  command, 
could  not  venture  to  express  publicly  all  that  he  thought.  He 
however  remonstrated  strongly.  Some  Irish  officers  felt  on 
this  occasion  as  it  was  natural  that  brave  men  should  feel,  and 
declared,  weeping  with  pity  and  indignation,  that  they  should 
never  cease  to  have  in  their  ears  the  cries  of  the  poor  women 
and  children  who  had  been  driven  at  the  point  of  the  pike  to 
die  of  famine  between  the  camp  and  the  city.  Rosen  persisted 
during  forty-eight  hours.  In  that  time  many  unhappy  creatures 
perished  :  but  Londonderry  held  out  as  resolutely  as  ever  ;  and 
he  saw  that  his  crime  was  likely  to  produce  nothing  but  hatred 
and  obloquy.  He  at  length  gave  way,  and  suffered  the  sur- 
vivors to  withdraw.  The  garrison  then  took  down  the  gallows 
which  had  been  erected  on  the  bastion.1 

When  the  tidings  of  these  events  reached  Dublin,  James, 
though  by  no  means  prone  to  compassion,  was  startled  by  an 

1  Walker;  Mackenzie;  Light  to  the  Blind;  King,  iii.  13;  Leslie's  Answer 
to  King ;  Life  of  James,  ii.  366.  I  ought  to  say  that  on  this  occasion  King  is 
unjust  to  James. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  405 

atrocity  of  which  the  civil  wars  of  England  had  furnished  no 
example,  and  was  displeased  by  learning  that  protections,  given 
by  his  authority,  and  guaranteed  by  his  honour,  had  been 
publicly  declared  to  be  nullities.  He  complained  to  the  French 
ambassador,  and  said,  with  a  warmth  which  the  occasion  fully 
justified,  that  Rosen  was  a  barbarous  Muscovite.  Melfort  could 
not  refrain  from  adding  that,  if  Rosen  had  been  an  Englishman, 
he  would  have  been  hanged.  Avaux  was  utterly  unable  to  under- 
stand this  effeminate  sensibility.  In  his  opinion,  nothing  had 
been  done  that  was  at  all  reprehensible ;  and  he  had  some 
difficulty  in  commanding  himself  when  he  heard  the  King  and 
the  secretary  blame,  in  strong  language,  an  act  of  wholesome 
severity.1  In  truth,  the  French  ambassador  and  the  French 
general  were  well  paired.  There  was  a  great  difference  doubt- 
less, in  appearance  and  manner,  between  the  handsome,  graceful, 
and  refined  politician,  whose  dexterity  and  suavity  had  been 
renowned  at  the  most  polite  courts  of  Europe,  and  the  military 
adventurer,  whose  look  and  voice  reminded  all  who  came  near 
him  that  he  had  been  born  in  a  half-savage  country,  that  he 
had  risen  from  the  ranks,  and  that  he  had  once  been  sentenced 
to  death  for  marauding.  But  the  heart  of  the  diplomatist  was 
really  even  more  callous  than  that  of  the  soldier. 

Rosen  was  recalled  to  Dublin ;  and  Richard  Hamilton  was 
again  left  in  the  chief  command.  He  tried  gentler  means  than 
those  which  had  brought  so  much  reproach  on  his  predecessor. 
No  trick,  no  lie,  which  was  thought  likely  to  discourage  the 
starving  garrison  was  spared.  One  day  a  great  shout  was 
raised  by  the  whole  Irish  camp.  The  defenders  of  London- 
derry were  soon  informed  that  the  army  of  James  was  rejoicing 
on  account  of  the  fall  of  Enniskillen.  They  were  told  that 
they  had  now  no  chance  of  being  relieved,  and  were  exhorted 
to  save  their  lives  by  capitulating.  They  consented  to  negotiate. 
But  what  they  asked  was,  that  they  should  be  permitted  to 

1  I^eslie's  Answer  to  King;  Avaux,  July  1\.  1689.  "  Je  trouvay  1'expression 
bien  forte :  mais  je  ne  voulois  rien  repondre,  car  le  Roy  s'estoit  desja  fort 
emporteV' 


406  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

depart  armed  and  in  military  array,  by  land  or  by  water  at 
their  choice.  They  demanded  hostages  for  the  exact  fulfil- 
ment of  these  conditions,  and  insisted  that  the  hostages  should 
be  sent  on  board  of  the  fleet  which  lay  in  Lough  Foyle.  Such 
terms  Hamilton  durst  not  grant :  the  Governors  would  abate 
nothing :  the  treaty  was  broken  off ;  and  the  conflict  re- 
commenced.1 

By  this  time  July  was  far  advanced ;  and  the  state  of  the 
city  was,  hour  by  hour,  becoming  more  frightful.  The  number 
of  the  inhabitants  had  been  thinned  more  by  famine  and 
disease  than  by  the  fire  of  the  enemy.  Yet  that  fire  was 
sharper  and  more  constant  than  ever.  One  of  the  gates  was 
beaten  in :  one  of  the  bastions  was  laid  in  ruins ;  but  the 
breaches  made  by  day  were  repaired  by  night  with  indefatigable 
activity.  Every  attack  was  still  repelled.  But  the  fighting 
men  of  the  garrison  were  so  much  exhausted  that  they  could 
scarcely  keep  their  legs.  Several  of  them,  in  the  act  of  strik- 
ing at  the  enemy,  fell  down  from  mere  weakness.  A  very 
small  quantity  of  grain  remained,  and  was  doled  out  by  mouth- 
fuls.  The  stock  of  salted  hides  was  considerable,  and  by 
gnawing  them  the  garrison  appeased  the  rage  of  hunger. 
Dogs,  fattened  on  the  blood  of  the  slain  who  lay  unburied 
round  the  town,  were  luxuries  which  few  could  afford  to  pur- 
chase. The  price  of  a  whelp's  paw  was  five  shillings  and 
sixpence.  Nine  horses  were  still  alive,  and  but  barely  alive. 
They  were  so  lean  that  little  meat  was  likely  to  be  found  upon 
them.  It  was,  however,  determined  to  slaughter  them  for  food. 
The  people  perished  so  fast  that  it  was  impossible  for  the 
survivors  to  perform  the  rites  of  sepulture.  There  was  scarcely 
a  cellar  in  which  some  corpse  was  not  decaying.  Such  was 
the  extremity  of  distress,  that  the  rats  who  came  to  feast  in 
those  hideous  dens  were  eagerly  hunted  and  greedily  devoured. 
A  small  fish,  caught  in  the  river,  was  not  to  be  purchased  with 
money.  The  only  price  for  which  such  a  treasure  could  be 
obtained  was  some  handfuls  of  oatmeal.  Leprosies,  such  as 

1  Mackenzie. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  407 

strange  and  unwholesome  diet  engenders,  made  existence  a 
constant  torment.  The  whole  city  was  poisoned  by  the  stench 
exhaled  from  the  bodies  of  the  dead  and  of  the  half  dead. 
That  there  should  be  fits  of  discontent  and  insubordination 
among  men  enduring  such  misery  was  inevitable.  At  one 
moment  it  was  suspected  that  Walker  had  laid  up  somewhere 
a  secret  store  of  food,  and  was  revelling  in  private,  while  he 
exhorted  others  to  suffer  resolutely  for  the  good  cause.  His 
house  was  strictly  examined :  his  innocence  was  fully  proved  : 
he  regained  his  popularity ;  and  the  garrison,  with  death  in 
near  prospect,  thronged  to  the  cathedral  to  hear  him  preach, 
drank  in  his  earnest  eloquence  with  delight,  and  went  forth 
from  the  house  of  God  with  haggard  faces  and  tottering  steps, 
but  with  spirit  still  unsubdued.  There  were,  indeed,  some 
secret  plottings.  A  very  few  obscure  traitors  opened  com- 
munications with  the  enemy.  But  it  was  necessary  that  all 
such  dealings  should  be  carefully  concealed.  None  dared  to 
utter  publicly  any  words  save  words  of  defiance  and  stubborn 
resolution.  Even  in  that  extremity  the  general  cry  was,  "  No 
surrender !  "  And  there  were  not  wanting  voices  which,  in  low 
tones,  added,  "  First  the  horses  and  hides ;  and  then  the 
prisoners ;  and  then  each  other."  It  was  afterwards  related, 
half  in  jest,  yet  not  without  a  horrible  mixture  of  earnest,  that 
a  corpulent  citizen,  whose  bulk  presented  a  strange  contrast  to 
the  skeletons  which  surrounded  him,  thought  it  expedient  to 
conceal  himself  from  the  numerous  eyes  which  followed  him 
with  cannibal  looks  whenever  he  appeared  in  the  streets.1 

It  was  no  slight  aggravation  of  the  sufferings  of  the  garrison 
that  all  this  time  the  English  ships  were  seen  far  off  in  Lough 
Foyle.  Communication  between  the  fleet  and  the  city  was 
almost  impossible.  One  diver  who  had  attempted  to  pass  the 
boom  was  drowned.  Another  was  hanged.  The  language  of 
signals  was  hardly  intelligible.  On  the  thirteenth  of  July, 

1  Walker's  Account.  "  The  fat  man  in  Londonderry  "  became  a  proverbial 
expression  for  a  person  whose  prosperity  excited  the  envy  and  cupidity  of  his 
less  fortunate  neighbours. 


408  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

however,  a  piece  of  paper  sewed  up  in  a  cloth  button  came  to 
Walker's  hands.  It  was  a  letter  from  Kirke,  and  contained 
assurances  of  speedy  relief.  But  more  than  a  fortnight  of 
intense  misery  had  since  elapsed ;  and  the  hearts  of  the  most 
sanguine  were  sick  with  deferred  hope.  By  no  art  could  the 
provisions  which  were  left  be  made  to  hold  out  two  days  more.1 

Just  at  this  time  Kirke  received  a  despatch  from  England, 
which  contained  positive  orders  that  Londonderry  should  be 
relieved.  He  accordingly  determined  to  make  an  attempt 
which,  as  far  as  appears,  he  might  have  made,  with  at  least 
an  equally  fair  prospect  of  success,  six  weeks  earlier.2 

Among  the  merchant  ships  which  had  come  to  Lough  Foyle 
under  his  convoy  was  one  called  the  Mountjoy.  The  master, 
Micaiah  Browning,  a  native  of  Londonderry,  had  brought  from 
England  a  large  cargo  of  provisions.  He  had,  it  is  said,  re- 
peatedly remonstrated  against  the  inaction  of  the  armament. 
He  now  eagerly  volunteered  to  take  the  first  risk  of  succour- 
ing his  fellow  citizens ;  and  his  offer  was  accepted.  Andrew 
Douglas,  master  of  the  Phoenix,  who  had  on  board  a  great 
quantity  of  meal  from  Scotland,  was  willing  to  share  the  danger 
and  the  honour.  The  two  merchantmen  were  to  be  escorted 
by  the  Dartmouth,  a  frigate  of  thirty-six  guns,  commanded  by 
Captain  John  Leake,  afterwards  an  admiral  of  great  fame. 

It  was  the  twenty-eighth  of  July.  The  sun  had  just  set :  the 
evening  sermon  in  the  cathedral  was  over  ;  and  the  heartbroken 
congregation  had  separated,  when  the  sentinels  on  the  tower 

1  This,  according  to  Narcissus  Luttrell,  was  the  report  made  by  Captain 
Withers,  afterwards  a  highly  distinguished  officer,  on  whom  Pope  wrote  an 
epitaph. 

2  The  despatch,  which  positively  commanded  Kirke  to  attack  the  boom, 
was  signed  by  Schomberg,  who  had  already  been  appointed  commander  in 
chief  of  all  the  English  forces  in  Ireland.    A  copy  of  it  is  among  the  Nairne 
MSS.  in  the  Bodleian  Library.    Wodrow,  on  no  better  authority  than  the 
gossip  of  a  country  parish  in  Dumbartonshire,  attributes  the  relief  of  London- 
derry to  the  exhortations  of  a  heroic  Scotch  preacher  named  Gordon.    I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  Kirke  was  more  likely  to  be  influenced  by  a  peremptory 
order  from  Schomberg,  than  by  the  united  eloquence  of  a  whole  synod  of 
presbyterian  divines. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  409 

saw  the  sails  of  three  vessels  coming  up  the  Foyle.  Soon 
there  was  a  stir  in  the  Irish  camp.  The  besiegers  were  on  the 
alert  for  miles  along  both  shores.  The  ships  were  in  extreme 
peril :  for  the  river  was  low ;  and  the  only  navigable  channel 
ran  very  near  to  the  left  bank,  where  the  headquarters  of  the 
enemy  had  been  fixed,  and  where  the  batteries  were  most 
numerous.  Leake  performed  his  duty  with  a  skill  and  spirit 
worthy  of  his  noble  profession,  exposed  his  frigate  to  cover  the 
merchantmen,  and  used  his  guns  with  great  effect.  At  length 
the  little  squadron  came  to  the  place  of  peril.  Then  the 
Mount] oy  took  the  lead,  and  went  right  at  the  boom.  The 
huge  barricade  cracked  and  gave  way  :  but  the  shock  was  such 
that  the  Mountjoy  rebounded,  and  stuck  in  the  mud.  A  yell 
of  triumph  rose  from  the  banks :  the  Irish  rushed  to  their 
boats,  and  were  preparing  to  board ;  but  the  Dartmouth 
poured  on  them  a  well-directed  broadside,  which  threw  them 
into  disorder.  Just  then  the  Phoenix  dashed  at  the  breach 
which  the  Mountjoy  had  made,  and  was  in  a  moment  within 
the  fence.  Meantime  the  tide  was  rising  fast.  The  Mountjoy 
began  to  move,  and  soon  passed  safe  through  the  broken 
stakes  and  floating  spars.  But  her  brave  master  was  no  more. 
A  shot  from  one  of  the  batteries  had  struck  him ;  and  he  died 
by  the  most  enviable  of  all  deaths,  in  sight  of  the  city  which 
was  his  birthplace,  which  was  his  home,  and  which  had  just 
been  saved  by  his  courage  and  self-devotion  from  the  most 
frightful  form  of  destruction.  The  night  had  closed  in  before 
the  conflict  at  the  boom  began  ;  but  the  flash  of  the  guns  was 
seen,  and  the  noise  heard,  by  the  lean  and  ghastly  multitude 
which  covered  the  walls  of  the  city.  When  the  Mountjoy 
grounded,  and  when  the  shout  of  triumph  rose  from  the  Irish 
on  both  sides  of  the  river,  the  hearts  of  the  besieged  died 
within  them.  One  who  endured  the  unutterable  anguish  of 
that  moment  has  told  us  that  they  looked  fearfully  livid  in 
each  other's  eyes.  Even  after  the  barricade  had  been  passed, 
there  was  a  terrible  half  hour  of  suspense.  It  was  ten  o'clock 
before  the  ships  arrived  at  the  quay.  The  whole  population 


410  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

was  there  to  welcome  them.  A  screen  made  of  casks  filled 
with  earth  was  hastily  thrown  up  to  protect  the  landing  place 
from  the  batteries  on  the  other  side  of  the  river ;  and  then  the 
work  of  unloading  began.  First  were  rolled  on  shore  barrels 
containing  six  thousand  bushels  of  meal.  Then  came  great 
cheeses,  casks  of  beef,  flitches  of  bacon,  kegs  of  butter,  sacks 
of  pease  and  biscuit,  ankers  of  brandy.  Not  many  hours 
before,  half  a  pound  of  tallow  and  three  quarters  of  a  pound  of 
salted  hide  had  been  weighed  out  with  niggardly  care  to  every 
fighting  man.  The  ration  which  each  now  received  was  three 
pounds  of  flour,  two  pounds  of  beef,  and  a  pint  of  pease.  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  with  what  tears  grace  was  said  over  the  suppers 
of  that  evening.  There  was  little  sleep  on  either  side  of  the 
wall.  The  bonfires  shone  bright  along  the  whole  circuit  of  the 
ramparts.  The  Irish  guns  continued  to  roar  all  night ;  and  all 
night  the  bells  of  the  rescued  city  made  answer  to  the  Irish 
guns  with  a  peal  of  joyous  defiance.  Through  the  three  fol- 
lowing days  the  batteries  of  the  enemy  continued  to  play. 
But  on  the  third  night  flames  were  seen  arising  from  the  camp  ; 
and,  when  the  first  of  August  dawned,  a  line  of  smoking  ruins 
marked  the  site  lately  occupied  by  the  huts  of  the  besiegers ; 
and  the  citizens  saw  far  off  the  long  column  of  pikes  and 
standards  retreating  up  the  left  bank  of  the  Foyle  towards 
Strabane.1 

So  ended  this  great  siege,  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals 
of  the  British  isles.  It  had  lasted  a  hundred  and  five  days. 
The  garrison  had  been  reduced  from  about  seven  thousand 
effective  men  to  about  three  thousand.  The  loss  of  the  be- 
siegers cannot  be  precisely  ascertained.  Walker  estimated  it  at 
eight  thousand  men.  It  is  certain  from  the  despatches  of  Avaux 
that  the  regiments  which  returned  from  the  blockade  had  been 
so  much  thinned  that  many  of  them  were  not  more  than 

1  Walker ;  Mackenzie ;  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  d'Irlande,  Amsterdam, 
1691;  London  Gazette,  Aug.  •£%.  1689;  Letter  of.  Buchan  among  the  Nairne 
MSS.;  Life  of  Sir  John  Leake ;  The  Londeriad ;  Observations  on  Mr. 
Walker's  Account  of  the  Siege  of  Londonderry,  licensed  Oct.  4.  1689. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  411 

two  hundred  strong.  Of  thirty-six  French  gunners  who  had 
superintended  the  cannonading,  thirty-one  had  been  killed  or 
disabled.1  The  means  both  of  attack  and  of  defence  had 
undoubtedly  been  such  as  would  have  moved  the  great  warriors 
of  the  Continent  to  laughter ;  and  this  is  the  very  circumstance 
which  gives  so  peculiar  an  interest  to  the  history  of  the  contest. 
It  was  a  contest,  not  between  engineers,  but  between  nations ; 
and  the  victory  remained  with  the  nation  which,  though  in- 
ferior in  number,  was  superior  in  civilization,  in  capacity  for 
self-government,  and  in  stubbornness  of  resolution.2 

As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the  Irish  army  had  retired,  a 
deputation  from  the  city  hastened  to  Lough  Foyle,  and  invited 
Kirke  to  take  the  command.  He  came  accompanied  by  a  long 
train  of  officers,  and  was  received  in  state  by  the  two  Gov- 
ernors, who  delivered  up  to  him  the  authority  which,  under 
the  pressure  of  necessity,  they  had  assumed.  He  remained  only 
a  few  days ;  but  he  had  time  to  show  enough  of  the  incurable 
vices  of  his  character  to  disgust  a  population  distinguished  by 
austere  morals  and  ardent  public  spirit.  There  was,  however, 
no  outbreak.  The  city  was  in  the  highest  good  humour.  Such 
quantities  of  provisions  had  been  landed  from  the  fleet,  that 
there  was  in  every  house  a  plenty  never  before  known.  A  few 
days  earlier  a  man  had  been  glad  to  obtain  for  twenty  pence  a 
mouthful  of  carrion  scraped  from  the  bones  of  a  starved  horse. 
A  pound  of  good  beef  was  now  sold  for  three  halfpence. 
Meanwhile  all  hands  were  busied  in  removing  corpses  which 
had  been  thinly  covered  with  earth,  in  filling  up  the  holes 
which  the  shells  had  ploughed  in  the  ground,  and  in  repairing 
the  battered  roofs  of  the  houses.  The  recollection  of  past 

•    1  Avaux  to  Seignelay,  July  Jj} ;  to  Louis,  Aug.  -f^. 

2  "  You  will  see  here,  as  you  have  all  along,  that  the  tradesmen  of  London- 
derry had  more  skill  in  their  defence  than  the  great  officers  of  the  Irish  army 
in  their  attacks."  —  Light  to  the  Blind.  The  author  of  this  work  is  furious 
against  the  Irish  gunners.  The  boom,  he  thinks,  would  never  have  been  broken 
if  they  had  done  their  duty.  Were  they  drunk  ?  Were  they  traitors  ?  He  does 
not  determine  the  point.  "  Lord,"  he  exclaims,  "  who  seest  the  hearts  of  people, 
we  leave  the  judgment  of  this  affair  to  thy  mercy.  In  the  interim  those  gun- 
ners lost  Ireland." 


412  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

dangers  and  privations,  and  the  consciousness  of  having  de- 
served well  of  the  English  nation  and  of  all  Protestant 
Churches,  swelled  the  hearts  of  the  townspeople  with  honest 
pride.  That  pride  grew  stronger  when  they  received  from 
William  a  letter  acknowledging,  in  the  most  affectionate  lan- 
guage, the  debt  which  he  owed  to  the  brave  and  trusty  citizens 
of  his  good  city.  The  whole  population  crowded -to  the  Dia- 
mond to  hear  the  royal  epistle  read.  At  the  close  all  the  guns  on 
the  ramparts  sent  forth  a  voice  of  joy ;  all  the  ships  in  the  river 
made  answer ;  barrels  of  ale  were  broken  up ;  and  the  health  of 
their  Majesties  was  drunk  with  shouts  and  volleys  of  musketry. 
Five  generations  have  since  passed  away ;  and  still  the  wall 
of  Londonderry  is  to  the  Protestants  of  Ulster  what  the  trophy 
of  Marathon  was  to  the  Athenians.  A  lofty  pillar,  rising  from 
a  bastion  which  bore  during  many  weeks  the  heaviest  fire  of  the 
enemy,  is  seen  far  up  and  far  down  the  Foyle.  On  the  summit 
is  the  statue  of  Walker,  such  as  when,  in  the  last  and  most 
terrible  emergency,  his  eloquence  roused  the  fainting  courage 
of  his  brethren.  In  one  hand  he  grasps  a  Bible.  The  other, 
pointing  down  the  river,  seems  to  direct  the  eyes  of  his  fam- 
ished audience  to  the  English  topmasts  in  the  distant  bay. 
Such  a  monument  was  well  deserved :  yet  it  was  scarcely 
needed :  for  in  truth  the  whole  city  is  to  this  day  a  monument 
of  the  great  deliverance.  The  wall  is  carefully  preserved ;  nor 
would  any  plea  of  health  or  convenience  be  held  by  the  inhabit- 
ants sufficient  to  justify  the  demolition  of  that  sacred  enclosure 
which,  in  the  evil  time,  gave  shelter  to  their  race  and  their 
religion.1  The  summit  of  the  ramparts  forms  a  pleasant  walk. 
The  bastions  have  been  turned  into  little  gardens.  Here  and 
there,  among  the  shrubs  and  flowers,  may  be  seen  the  old 
culverins  which  scattered  bricks,  cased  with  lead,  among  the 
Irish  ranks.  One  antique  gun,  the  gift  of  the  Fishmongers  of 
London,  was  distinguished,  during  the  hundred  and  five  mem- 
orable days,  by  the  loudness  of  its  report,  and  still  bears  the 

1  In  a  collection  entitled  "  Derriana,"  which  was  published  more  than  sixty, 
years  ago,  is  a  curious  letter  on  this  subject. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  413 

name  of  Roaring  Meg.  The  cathedral  is  filled  with  relics  and 
trophies.  In  the  vestibule  is  a  huge  shell,  one  of  many  hun- 
dreds of  shells  which  were  thrown  into  the  city.  Over  the  altar 
are  still  seen  the  French  flagstaves,  taken  by  the  garrison  in  a 
desperate  sally.  The  white  ensigns  of  the  House  of  Bourbon 
have  long  been  dust :  but  their  place  has  been  supplied  by  new 
banners,  the  work  of  the  fairest  hands  of  Ulster.  The  anni- 
versary of  the  day  on  which  the  gates  were  closed,  and  the 
anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  the  siege  was  raised,  have 
been  down  to  our  own  time  celebrated  by  salutes,  processions, 
banquets,  and  sermons  :  Lundy  has  been  executed  in  effigy ; 
and  the  sword,  said  by  tradition  to  be  that  of  Maumont,  has, 
on  great  occasions,  been  carried  in  triumph.  There  is  still  a 
Walker  Club  and  a  Murray  Club.  The  humble  tombs  of  the 
Protestant  captains  have  been  carefully  sought  out,  repaired, 
and  embellished.  It  is  impossible  not  to  respect  the  sentiment 
which  indicates  itself  by  these  tokens.  It  is  a  sentiment  which 
belongs  to  the  higher  and  purer  part  of  human  nature,  and 
which  adds  not  a  little  to  the  strength  of  states.  A  people 
which  takes  no  pride  in  the  noble  achievements  of  remote 
ancestors  will  never  achieve  anything  worthy  to  be  remem- 
bered with  pride  by  remote  descendants.  Yet  it  is  impossible 
for  the  moralist  or  the  statesman  to  look  with  unmixed  com- 
placency on  the  solemnities  with  which  Londonderry  commem- 
orates her  deliverance,  and  on  the  honours  which  she  pays  to 
those  who  saved  her.  Unhappily  the  animosities  of  her  brave 
champions  have  descended  with  their  glory.  The  faults  which 
are  ordinarily  found  in  dominant  castes  and  dominant  sects 
have  not  seldom  shown  themselves  without  disguise  at  her 
festivities ;  and  even  with  the  expressions  of  pious  gratitude 
which  have  resounded  from  her  pulpits  have  too  often  been 
mingled  words  of  wrath  and  defiance. 


4H  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

(g]  THE  KING'S  TOUCH  FOR  SCROFULA 

The  King  too,  it  was  said,  was  not  sound.  He  conformed 
indeed  to  the  established  worship ;  but  his  was  a  local  and 
occasional  conformity.  For  some  ceremonies  to  which  High 
Churchmen  were  attached  he  had  a  distaste  which  he  was  at 
no  pains  to  conceal.  One  of  his  first  acts  had  been  to  give 
orders  that  in  his  private  chapel  the  service  should  be  said  in- 
stead of  being  sung ;  and  this  arrangement,  though  warranted 
by  the  rubric,  caused  much  murmuring.1  It  was  known  that  he 
was  so  profane  as  to  sneer  at  a  practice  which  had  been  sanc- 
tioned by  high  ecclesiastical  authority,  the  practice  of  touching 
for  the  scrofula.  This  ceremony  had  come  down  almost  un- 
altered from  the  darkest  of  the  dark  ages  to  the  time  of 
Newton  and  Locke.  The  Stuarts  frequently  dispensed  the 
healing  influences  in  the  Banqueting  House.  The  days  on 
which  this  miracle  was  to  be  wrought  were  fixed  at  sittings  of 
the  Privy  Council,  and  were  solemnly  notified  by  the  clergy  in 
all  the  parish  churches  of  the  realm.2  When  the  appointed 
time  came,  several  divines  in  full  canonicals  stood  round  the 
canopy  of  state.  The  surgeon  of  the  royal  household  intro- 
duced the  sick.  A  passage  from  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  the 
Gospel  of  Saint  Mark  was  read.  When  the  words,  "They  shall 
lay  their  hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover,"  had  been 
pronounced,  there  was  a  pause,  and  one  of  the  sick  was  brought 
up  to  the  King.  His  Majesty  stroked  the  ulcers  and  swellings, 
and  hung  round  the  patient's  neck  a  white  riband  to  which 
was  fastened  a  gold  coin.  The  other  sufferers  were  then  led 
up  in  succession ;  and,  as  each  was  touched,  the  chaplain  re- 
peated the  incantation,  "They  shall  lay  their  hands  on  the  sick, 
and  they  shall  recover."  Then  came  the  epistle,  prayers,  an- 
tiphonies,  and  a  benediction.  The  service  may  still  be  found  in 

1  William's  dislike  of  the  Cathedral  service  is  sarcastically  noticed  by 
Leslie  in  the  Rehearsal,  No.  7.  See  also  a  Letter  from  a  Member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  to  his  Friend  in  the  Country,  1689,  and  Bisset's  Modern 
Fanatic,  1710.  2  See  the  Order  in  Council  of  Jan.  9.  1683. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  415 

the  prayer  books  of  the  reign  of  Anne.  Indeed  it  was  not  till 
some  time  after  the  accession  of  George  the  First  that  the 
University  of  Oxford  ceased  to  reprint  the  Office  of  Healing 
together  with  the  Liturgy.  Theologians  of  eminent  learning, 
ability,  and  virtue  gave  the  sanction  of  their  authority  to  this 
mummery ; 1  and,  what  is  stranger  still,  medical  men  of  high 
note  believed,  or  affected  to  believe,  in  the  balsamic  virtues  of 
the  royal  hand.  We  must  suppose  that  every  surgeon  who 
attended  Charles  the  Second  was  a  man  of  high  repute  for 
skill ;  and  more  than  one  of  the  surgeons  who  attended 
Charles  the  Second  has  left  us  a  solemn  profession  of  faith  in 
the  King's  miraculous  power.  One  of  them  is  not  ashamed  to 
tell  us  that  the  gift  was  communicated  by  the  unction  adminis- 
tered at  the  coronation  ;  that  the  cures  were  so  numerous  and 
sometimes  so  rapid  that  they  could  not  be  attributed  to  any 
natural  cause ;  that  the  failures  were  to  be  ascribed  to  want  of 
faith  on  the  part  of  the  patients ;  that  Charles  once  handled  a 
scrofulous  Quaker  and  made  him  a  healthy  man  and  a  sound 
Churchman  in  a  moment ;  that  if  those  who  had  been  healed 
lost  or  sold  the  piece  of  gold  which  had  been  hung  round 
their  necks,  the  ulcers  broke  forth  again,  and  could  be  removed 
only  by  a  second  touch  and  a  second  talisman.  We  cannot 
wonder  that  when  men  of  science  gravely  repeated  such  non- 
sense the  vulgar  should  believe  it.  Still  less  can  we  wonder  that 
wretches  tortured  by  a  disease  over  which  natural  remedies 
had  no  power  should  have  eagerly  drunk  in  tales  of  preternat- 
ural cures  :  for  nothing  is  so  credulous  as  misery.  The  crowds 
which  repaired  to  the  palace  on  the  days  of  healing  were  im- 
mense. Charles  the  Second,  in  the  course  of  his  reign,  touched 
near  a  hundred  thousand  persons.  The  number  seems  to  have 

1  See  Collier's  Desertion  discussed,  1689.  Thomas  Carte,  who  was  a  disci- 
ple, and,  at  one  time,  an  assistant  of  Collier,  inserted,  so  late  as  the  year  1747, 
in  a  bulky  History  of  England,  an  exquisitely  absurd  note,  in  which  he  assured 
the  world  that,  to  his  certain  knowledge,  the  Pretender  had  cured  the  scrofula, 
and  very  gravely  inferred  that  the  healing  virtue  was  transmitted  by  inher- 
itance, and  was  quite  independent  of  any  unction.  See  Carte's  History  of 
England,  vol.  i.  page  291. 


416  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

increased  or  diminished  as  the  king's  popularity  rose  or  fell. 
During  that  Tory  reaction  which  followed  the  dissolution  of 
the  Oxford  Parliament,  the  press  to  get  near  him  was  terrific. 
In  1682,  he  performed  the  rite  eight  thousand  five  hundred 
times.  In  1684,  the  throng  was  such  that  six  or  seven  of  the 
sick  were  trampled  to  death.  James,  in  one  of  his  progresses, 
touched  eight  hundred  persons  in  the  choir  of  the  Cathedral  of 
Chester.  The  expense  of  the  ceremony  was  little  less  than  ten 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  would  have  been  much  greater 
but  for  the  vigilance  of  the  royal  surgeons,  whose  business  it 
was  to  examine  the  applicants,  and  to  distinguish  those  who 
came  for  the  cure  from  those  who  came  for  the  gold.1 

William  had  too  much  sense  to  be  duped,  and  too  much 
honesty  to  bear  a  part  in  what  he  knew  to  be  an  imposture. 
"  It  is  a  silly  superstition,"  he  exclaimed,  when  he  heard  that, 
at  the  close  of  Lent,  his  palace  was  besieged  by  a  crowd  of 
the  sick:  "give  the  poor  creatures  some  money,  and  send 
them  away."  2  On  one  single  occasion  he  was  importuned  into 
laying  his  hand  on  a  patient.  "  God  give  you  better  health," 
he  said,  "and  more  sense."  The  parents  of  scrofulous  children 
cried  out  against  his  cruelty :  bigots  lifted  up  their  hands  and 
eyes  in  horror  at  his  impiety :  Jacobites  sarcastically  praised 
him  for  not  presuming  to  arrogate  to  himself  a  power  which 
belonged  only  to  legitimate  sovereigns ;  and  even  some  Whigs 
thought  that  he  acted  unwisely  in  treating  with  such  marked 
contempt  a  superstition  which  had  a  strong  hold  on  the  vulgar 

1  See  the  Preface  to  a  Treatise  on  Wounds,  by  Richard  Wiseman,  Sergeant 
Chirurgeon  to  His  Majesty,  1676.     But  the  fullest  information  on  this  curious 
subject  will  be  found  in  the  Charisma  Basilicon,  by  John  Browne,  Chirurgeon 
in  ordinary  to  His  Majesty,  1684.    See  also  The  Ceremonies  used  in  the  Time 
of  King  Henry  VII.  for  the  Healing  of  them  that  be  Diseased  with  the  King's 
Evil,  published  by  His  Majesty's  Command,  1686;  Evelyn's  Diary,  March  28. 
1684;  and  Bishop  Cartwright's  Diary,  August  28,  29,  and  30.  1687.    It  is  in- 
credible that  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  population  should  have  been  really 
scrofulous.     No  doubt  many  persons  who  had  slight  and  transient  maladies 
were  brought  to  the  king,  and  the  recovery  of  these  persons  kept  up  the  vul- 
gar belief  in  the  efficacy  of  his  touch. 

2  Paris  Gazette,  April  23.  1689. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  417 

mind  :  but  William  was  not  to  be  moved,  and  was  accordingly 
set  down  by  many  High  Churchmen  as  either  an  infidel  or  a 
puritan.1 

(/i)  RISE  AND  PROGRESS  OK  PARLIAMENTARY  CORRUPTION 

The  history  of  the  rise,  progress,  and  decline  of  parlia- 
mentary corruption  in  England  still  remains  to  be  written.  No 
subject  has  called  forth  a  greater  quantity  of  eloquent  vituper- 
ation and  stinging  sarcasm.  Three  generations  of  serious  and 
of  sportive  writers  wept  and  laughed  over  the  venality  of  the 
senate.  That  venality  was  denounced  on  the  hustings,  anathe- 
matized from  the  pulpit,  and  burlesqued  on  the  stage ;  was 
attacked  by  Pope  in  brilliant  verse  and  by  Bolingbroke  in 
stately  prose,  by  Swift  with  savage  hatred  and  by  Gay  with 
festive  malice.  The  voices  of  Tories  and  Whigs,  of  Johnson 
and  Akenside,  of  Smollett  and  Fielding,  contributed  to  swell 
the  cry.  But  none  of  those  who  railed  or  of  those  who  jested 
took  the  trouble  to  verify  the  phenomena,  or  to  trace  them  to 
the  real  causes. 

Sometimes  the  evil  was  imputed  to  the  depravity  of  a  par- 
ticular minister :  but,  when  he  had  been  driven  from  power, 
and  when  those  who  had  most  loudly  accused  him  governed 
in  his  stead,  it  was  found  that  the  change  of  men  had  produced 
no  change  of  system.  Sometimes  the  evil  was  imputed  to  the 
degeneracy  of  the  national  character.  Luxury  and  cupidity,  it 
was  said,  had  produced  in  our  country  the  same  effect  which 
they  had  produced  of  old  in  the  Roman  republic.  The  modern 
Englishman  was  to  the  Englishman  of  the  sixteenth  century 
what  Verres  and  Curio  were  to  Dentatus  and  Fabricius.  Those 
who  held  this  language  were  as  ignorant  and  shallow  as  people 
generally  are  who  extol  the  past  at  the  expense  of  the  present. 
A  man  of  sense  would  have  perceived  that,  if  the  English  of 

1  See  "Whiston's  Life  of  himself.  Poor  Whiston,  who  believed  in  everything 
but  the  Trinity,  tells  us  gravely  that  the  single  person  whom  William  touched 
was  cured,  notwithstanding  His  Majesty's  want  of  faith.  See  also  the  Athenian 
Mercury  of  January  16.  1691. 


41 8  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  time  of  George  the  Second  had  really  been  more  sordid 
and  dishonest  than  their  forefathers,  the  deterioration  would 
not  have  shown  itself  in  one  place  alone.  The  progress  of 
judicial  venality  and  of  official  venality  would  have  kept  pace 
with  the  progress  of  parliamentary  venality.  But  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that,  while  the  legislature  was  becoming 
more  and  more  venal,  the  courts  of  law  and  the  public  offices 
were  becoming  purer  and  purer.  The  representatives  of  the 
people  were  undoubtedly  more  mercenary  in  the  days  of  Hard- 
wicke  and  Pelham  than  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors.  But  the 
Chancellors  of  the  Tudors  took  plate,  jewels,  and  purses  of 
broad  pieces,  from  suitors  without  scruple  or  shame  ;  and  Hard- 
wicke  would  have  committed  for  contempt  any  suitor  who  had 
dared  to  bring  him  a  present.  The  Treasurers  of  the  Tudors 
raised  princely  fortunes  by  the  sale  of  places,  titles,  and  par- 
dons ;  and  Pelham  would  have  ordered  his  servants  to  turn 
out  of  his  house  any  man  who  had  offered  him  money  for  a 
peerage  or  a  commissionership  of  customs.  It  is  evident,  there- 
fore, that  the  prevalence  of  corruption  in  the  Parliament  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  a  general  depravation  of  morals.  The  taint  was 
local :  we  must  look  for  some  local  cause ;  and  such  a  cause 
will  without  difficulty  be  found. 

Under  our  ancient  sovereigns  the  House  of  Commons  rarely 
interfered  with  the  executive  administration.  The  Speaker 
was  charged  not  to  let  the  members  meddle  with  matters  of 
State.  If  any  gentleman  was  very  troublesome,  he  was  cited 
before  the  Privy  Council,  interrogated,  reprimanded,  and  sent 
to  meditate  on  his  undutiful  conduct  in  the  Tower.  The 
Commons  did  their  best  to  protect  themselves  by  keeping 
their  deliberations  secret,  by  excluding  strangers,  by  making  it 
a  crime  to  repeat  out  of  doors  what  had  passed  within  doors. 
But  these  precautions  were  of  small  avail.  In  so  large  an 
assembly  there  were  always  tale-bearers  ready  to  carry  the  evil 
report  of  their  brethren  to  the  palace.  To  oppose  the  Court 
was  therefore  a  service  of  serious  danger.  In  those  days,  of 
course,  there  was  little  or  no  buying  of  votes.  For  an  honest 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  419 

man  was  not  to  be  bought ;  and  it  was  much  cheaper  to 
intimidate  or  to  coerce  a  knave  than  to  buy  him. 

For  a  very  different  reason  there  has  been  no  direct  buying 
of  votes  within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation.  The 
House  of  Commons  is  now  supreme  in  the  State,  but  is 
accountable  to  the  nation.  Even  those  members  who  are  not 
chosen  by  large  constituent  bodies  are  kept  in  awe  by  pub- 
lic opinion.  Everything  is  printed  :  everything  is  discussed : 
every  material  word  uttered  in  debate  is  read  by  a  million  of 
people  on  the  morrow.  Within  a  few  hours  after  an  important 
division,  the  lists  of  the  majority  and  the  minority  are  scanned 
and  analyzed  in  every  town  from  Plymouth  to  Inverness.  If 
a  name  be  found  where  it  ought  not  to  be,  the  apostate  is 
certain  to  be  reminded  in  sharp  language  of  the  promises 
which  he  has  broken  and  of  the  professions  which  he  has 
belied.  At  present,  therefore,  the  best  way  in  which  a  govern- 
ment can  secure  the  support  of  a  majority  of  the  representative 
body  is  by  gaining  the  confidence  of  the  nation. 

But  between  the  time  when  our  Parliaments  ceased  to  be 
controlled  by  royal  prerogative  and  the  time  when  they  began 
to  be  constantly  and  effectually  controlled  by  public  opinion 
there  was  a  long  interval.  After  the  Restoration,  no  govern- 
ment ventured  to  return  to  those  methods  by  which,  before 
the  civil  war,  the  freedom  of  deliberation  had  been  restrained. 
A  member  could  no  longer  be  called  to  account  for  his 
harangues  or  his  votes.  He  might  obstruct  the  passing  of 
bills  of  supply :  he  might  arraign  the  whole  foreign  policy  of 
the  country :  he  might  lay  on  the  table  articles  of  impeach- 
ment against  all  the  chief  ministers ;  and  he  ran  not  the 
smallest  risk  of  being  treated  as  Morrice  had  been  treated  by 
Elizabeth,  or  Eliot  by  Charles  the  First.  The  senator  now 
stood  in  no  awe  of  the  Court.  Nevertheless,  all  the  defences 
behind  which  the  feeble  Parliaments  of  the  sixteenth  century 
had  entrenched  themselves  against  the  attacks  of  prerogative 
were  not  only  still  kept  up,  but  were  extended  and  strength- 
ened. No  politician  seems  to  have  been  aware  that  these 


420  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

defences  were  no  longer  needed  for  their  original  purpose,  and 
had  begun  to  serve  a  purpose  very  different.  The  rules  which 
had  been  originally  designed  to  secure  faithful  representatives 
against  the  displeasure  of  the  Sovereign,  now  operated  to 
secure  unfaithful  representatives  against  the  displeasure  of  the 
people,  and  proved  much  more  effectual  for  the  latter  end  than 
they  had  ever  been  for  the  former.  It  was  natural,  it  was  in- 
evitable, that,  in  a  legislative  body  emancipated  from  the 
restraints  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  not  yet  subjected  to  the 
restraints  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a  legislative  body  which 
feared  neither  the  King  nor  the  public,  there  should  be 
corruption. 

The  plague  spot  began  to  be  visible  and  palpable  in  the  days 
of  the  Cabal.  Clifford,  the  boldest  and  fiercest  of  the  wicked 
Five,  had  the  merit  of  discovering  that  a  noisy  patriot,  whom 
it  was  no  longer  possible  to  send  to  prison,  might  be  turned 
into  a  courtier  by  a  goldsmith's  note.  Clifford's  example  was 
followed  by  his  successors.  It  soon  became  a  proverb  that  a 
Parliament  resembled  a  pump.  Often,  the  wits  said,  when  a 
pump  appears  to  be  dry,  if  a  very  small  quantity  of  water  is 
poured  in,  a  great  quantity  of  water  gushes  out :  and  so,  when 
a  Parliament  appears  to  be  niggardly,  ten  thousand  pounds 
judiciously  given  in  bribes  will  often  produce  a  million  in 
supplies.  The  evil  was  not  diminished,  nay,  it  was  aggravated, 
by  that  Revolution  which  freed  our  country  from  so  many  other 
evils.  The  House  of  Commons  was  now  more  powerful  than 
ever  as  against  the  Crown,  and  yet  was  not  more  strictly 
responsible  than  formerly  to  the  nation.  The  government  had 
a  new  motive  for  buying  the  members ;  and  the  members  had 
no  new  motive  for  refusing  to  sell  themselves.  William,  in- 
deed, had  an  aversion  to  bribery :  he  resolved  to  abstain  from 
it ;  and,  during  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  he  kept  his  resolu- 
tion. Unhappily  the  events  of  that  year  did  not  encourage 
him  to  persevere  in  his  good  intentions.  As  soon  as  Caer- 
marthen  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  internal  administration 
of  the  realm,  a  complete  change  took  place.  He  was  in  truth 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  421 

no  novice  in  the  art  of  purchasing  votes.  He  had,  sixteen 
years  before,  succeeded  Clifford  at  the  Treasury,  had  inherited 
Clifford's  tactics,  had  improved  upon  them,  and  had  employed 
them  to  an  extent  which  would  have  amazed  the  inventor. 
From  the  day  on  which  Caermarthen  was  called  a  second  time 
to  the  chief  direction  of  affairs,  parliamentary  corruption  con- 
tinued to  be  practised,  with  scarcely  any  intermission,  by  a  long 
succession  of  statesmen,  till  the  close  of  the  American  war. 
Neither  of  the  great  English  parties  can  justly  charge  the  other 
with  any  peculiar  guilt  on  this  account.  The  Tories  were  the 
first  who  introduced  the  system  and  the  last  who  clung  to  it : 
but  it  attained  its  greatest  vigour  in  the  time  of  Whig  ascend- 
ency. The  extent  to  which  parliamentary  support  was  bartered 
for  money  cannot  be  with  any  precision  ascertained.  But  it 
seems  probable  that  the  number  of  hirelings  was  greatly  exag- 
gerated by  vulgar  report,  and  was  never  large,  though  often 
sufficient  to  turn  the  scale  on  important  divisions.  An  unprin- 
cipled minister  eagerly  accepted  the  services  of  these  mercena- 
ries. An  honest  minister  reluctantly  submitted,  for  the  sake  of 
the  commonwealth,  to  what  he  considered  as  a  shameful  and 
odious  extortion.  But  during  many  years  every  minister,  what- 
ever his  personal  character  might  be,  consented,  willingly  or 
unwillingly,  to  manage  the  Parliament  in  the  only  way  in 
which  the  Parliament  could  then  be  managed.  It  at  length 
became  as  notorious  that  there  was  a  market  for  votes  at  the 
Treasury  as  that  there  was  a  market  for  cattle  in  Smithfield. 
Numerous  demagogues  out  of  power  declaimed  against  this 
vile  traffic  :  but  every  one  of  those  demagogues,  as  soon  as  he 
was  in  power,  found  himself  driven  by  a  kind  of  fatality  to 
engage  in  that  traffic,  or  at  least  to  connive  at  it.  Now  and 
then  perhaps  a  man  who  had  romantic  notions  of  public  virtue 
refused  to  be  himself  the  paymaster  of  the  corrupt  crew,  and 
averted  his  eyes  while  his  less  scrupulous  colleagues  did  that 
which  he  knew  to  be  indispensable,  and  yet  felt  to  be  degrad- 
ing. But  the  instances  of  this  prudery  were  rare  indeed.  The 
doctrine  generally  received,  even  among  upright  and  honourable 


422  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

politicians,  was  that  it  was  shameful  to  receive  bribes,  but 
that  it  was  necessary  to  distribute  them.  It  is  a  remarkable 
fact  that  the  evil  reached  the  greatest  height  during  the  admin- 
istration of  Henry  Pelham,  a  statesman  of  good  intentions,  of 
spotless  morals  in  private  life,  and  of  exemplary  disinterested- 
ness. It  is  not  difficult  to  guess  by  what  arguments  he  and 
other  well-meaning  men,  who,  like  him,  followed  the  fashion 
of  their  age,  quieted  their  consciences.  No  casuist,  however 
severe,  has  denied  that  it  may  be  a  duty  to  give  what  it  is  a 
crime  to  take.  It  was  infamous  in  Jeffreys  to  demand  money 
for  the  lives  of  the  unhappy  prisoners  whom  he  tried  at 
Dorchester  and  Taunton.  But  it  was  not  infamous,  nay,  it  was 
laudable,  in  the  kinsmen  and  friends  of  a  prisoner  to  con- 
tribute of  their  substance  in  order  to  make  up  a  purse  for 
Jeffreys.  The  Sallee  rover,  who  threatened  to  bastinado  a 
Christian  captive  to  death  unless  a  ransom  was  forthcoming, 
was  an  odious  ruffian.  But  to  ransom  a  Christian  captive  from 
a  Sallee  rover  was  not  merely  an  innocent  but  a  highly  meri- 
torious act.  It  is  improper  in  such  cases  to  use  the  word  cor- 
ruption. Those  who  receive  the  filthy  lucre  are  corrupt  already. 
He  who  bribes  them  does  not  make  them  wicked :  he  finds 
them  so ;  and  he  merely  prevents  their  evil  propensities  from 
producing  evil  effects.  And  might  not  the  same  plea  be  urged 
in  defence  of  a  minister  who,  when  no  other  expedient  would 
avail,  paid  greedy  and  low-minded  members  of  Parliament  not 
to  ruin  their  country  ? 

(z)  THE  BANK  OF  ENGLAND 

In  the  reign  of  William  old  men  were  still  living  who  could 
remember  the  days  when  there  was  not  a  single  banking  house 
in  the  city  of  London.  So  late  as  the  time  of  the  Restoration 
every  trader  had  his  own  strong  box  in  his  own  house,  and, 
when  an  acceptance  was  presented  to  him,  told  down  the 
crowns  and  Caroluses  on  his  own  counter.  But  the  increase 
of  wealth  had  produced  its  natural  effect,  the  subdivision  of 
labour.  Before  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second,  a 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  423 

new  mode  of  paying  and  receiving  money  had  come  into 
fashion  among  the  merchants  of  the  capital.  A  class  of  agents 
arose,  whose  office  was  to  keep  the  cash  of  the  commercial 
houses.  This  new  branch  of  business  naturally  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  goldsmiths,  who  were  accustomed  to  traffic  largely 
in  the  precious  metals,  and  who  had  vaults  in  which  great 
masses  of  bullion  could  lie  secure  from  fire  and  from  robbers. 
It  was  at  the  shops  of  the  goldsmiths  of  Lombard  Street  that 
all  the  payments  in  coin  were  made.  Other  traders  gave  and 
received  nothing  but  paper. 

This  great  change  did  not  take  place  without  much  opposi- 
tion and  clamour.  Old-fashioned  merchants  complained  bitterly 
that  a  class  of  men  who,  thirty  years  before,  had  confined 
themselves  to  their  proper  functions,  and  had  made  a  fair 
profit  by  embossing  silver  bowls  and  chargers,  by  setting  jewels 
for  fine  ladies,  and  by  selling  pistoles  and  dollars  to  gentlemen 
setting  out  for  the  Continent,  had  become  the  treasurers,  and 
were  fast  becoming  the  masters,  of  the  whole  City.  These 
usurers,  it  was  said,  played  at  hazard  with  what  had  been 
earned  by  the  industry  and  hoarded  by  the  thrift  of  other  men. 
If  the  dice  turned  up  well,  the  knave  who  kept  the  cash  became 
an  alderman  :  if  they  turned  up  ill,  the  dupe  who  furnished 
the  cash  became  a  bankrupt.  On  the  other  side  the  conven- 
iences of  the  modern  practice  were  set  forth  in  animated 
language.  The  new  system,  it  was  said,  saved  both  labour  and 
money.  Two  clerks  seated  in  one  countinghouse  did  what, 
under  the  old  system,  must  have  been  done  by  twenty  clerks 
in  twenty  different  establishments.  A  goldsmith's  note  might 
be  transferred  ten  times  in  a  morning;  and  thus  a  hundred 
guineas,  locked  in  his  safe  close  to  the  Exchange,  did  what 
would  formerly  have  required  a  thousand  guineas,  dispersed 
through  many  tills,  some  on  Ludgate  Hill,  some  in  Austin 
Friars,  and  some  in -Tower  Street.1 

1  See,  for  example,  the  Mystery  of  the  New-fashioned  Goldsmiths  or 
Brokers,  1676;  Is  not  the  Hand  of  Joab  in  all  this?  1676;  and  an  answer 
published  in  the  same  year.  See  also  England's  Glory  in  the  great  Improve- 
ment by  Banking  and  Trade,  1694. 


424  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

Gradually  even  those  who  had  been  loudest  in  murmuring 
against  the  innovation  gave  way  and  conformed  to  the  prevail- 
ing usage.  The  last  person  who  held  out,  strange  to  say,  was 
Sir  Dudley  North.  When,  in  1680,  after  residing  many  years 
abroad,  he  returned  to  London,  nothing  astonished  or  dis- 
pleased him  more  than  the  practice  of  making  payments  by 
drawing  bills  on  bankers.  He  found  that  he  could  not  go  on 
Change  without  being  followed  round  the  piazza,  by  goldsmiths, 
who,  with  low  bows,  begged  to  have  the  honour  of  serving  him. 
He  lost  his  temper  when  his  friends  asked  where  he  kept  his 
cash.  "  Where  should  I  keep  it,"  he  asked,  "  but  in  my  own 
house  ?  "  With  difficulty  he  was  induced  to  put  his  money  into 
the  hands  of  one  of  the  Lombard  Street  men,  as  they  were 
called.  Unhappily,  the  Lombard  Street  man  broke,  and  some 
of  his  customers  suffered  severely.  Dudley  North  lost  only 
fifty  pounds  :  but  this  loss  confirmed  him  in  his  dislike  of  the 
whole  mystery  of  banking.  It  was  in  vain,  however,  that  he 
exhorted  his  fellow  citizens  to  return  to  the  good  old  practice, 
and  not  to  expose  themselves  to  utter  ruin  in  order  to  spare 
themselves  a  little  trouble.  He  stood  alone  against  the  whole 
community.  The  advantages  of  the  modern  system  were  felt 
every  hour  of  every  day  in  every  part  of  London ;  and  people 
were  no  more  disposed  to  relinquish  those  advantages  for  fear 
of  calamities  which  occurred  at  long  intervals  than  to  refrain 
from  building  houses  for  fear  of  fires,  or  from  building  ships 
for  fear  of  hurricanes.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that  a  man 
who,  as  a  theorist,  was  distinguished  from  all  the  merchants  of 
his  time  by  the  largeness  of  his  views  and  by  his  superiority 
to  vulgar  prejudices,  should,  in  practice,  have  been  distinguished 
from  all  the  merchants  of  his  time  by  the  obstinacy  with  which 
he  adhered  to  an  ancient  mode  of  doing  business,  long  after 
the  dullest  and  most  ignorant  plodders  had  abandoned  that 
mode  for  one  better  suited  to  a  great  commercial  society.1 

No  sooner  had  banking  become  a  separate  and  important 
trade,  than  men  began  to  discuss  with  earnestness  the  question 
1  See  the  Ilife  of  Dudley  North,  by  his  brother  Roger. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  425 

whether  it  would  be  expedient  to  erect  a  national  bank.  The 
general  opinion  seems  to  have  been  decidedly  in  favour  of  a 
national  bank :  nor  can  we  wonder  at  this :  for  few  were  then 
aware  that  trade  is  in  general  carried  on  to  much  more  advan- 
tage by  individuals  than  by  great  societies ;  and  banking  really 
is  one  of  those  few  trades  which  can  be  carried  on  to  as  much 
advantage  by  a  great  society  as  by  an  individual.  Two  public 
banks  had  long  been  renowned  throughout  Europe  —  the  Bank 
of  Saint  George  at  Genoa,  and  the  Bank  of  Amsterdam.  The 
immense  wealth  which  was  in  the  keeping  of  those  establish- 
ments, the  confidence  which  they  inspired,  the  prosperity  which 
they  had  created,  their  stability,  tried  by  panics,  by  wars,  by 
revolutions,  and  found  proof"  against  all,  were  favourite  topics. 
The  bank  of  Saint  George  had  nearly  completed  its  third 
century.  It  had  begun  to  receive  deposits  and  to  make  loans 
before  Columbus  had  crossed  the  Atlantic,  before  Gama  had 
turned  the  Cape,  when  a  Christian  Emperor  was  reigning  at 
Constantinople,  when  a  Mahomedan  Sultan  was  reigning  at 
Granada,  when  Florence  was  a  Republic,  when  Holland  obeyed 
a  hereditary  Prince.  All  these  things  had  been  changed.  New 
continents  and  new  oceans  had  been  discovered.  The  Turk 
was  at  Constantinople:  the  Castilian  was  at  Granada:  Florence 
had  its  hereditary  Prince  :  Holland  was  a  Republic :  but  the 
Bank  of  Saint  George  was  still  receiving  deposits  and  making 
loans.  The  Bank  of  Amsterdam  was  little  more  than  eighty 
years  old  :  but  its  solvency  had  stood  severe  tests.  Even  in 
the  terrible  crisis  of  1672,  when  the  whole  Delta  of  the  Rhine 
was  overrun  by  the  French  armies,  when  the  white  flags  were 
seen  from  the  top  of  the  Stadthouse,  there  was  one  place 
where,  amidst  the  general  consternation  and  confusion,  tran- 
quillity and  security  were  still  to  be  found ;  and  that  place  was 
the  Bank.  Why  should  not  the  Bank  of  London  be  as  great 
and  as  durable  as  the  Banks  of  Genoa  and  of  Amsterdam  ? 
Before  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  several 
plans  were  proposed,  examined,  attacked,  and  defended.  Some 
pamphleteers  maintained  that  a  national  bank  ought  to  be 


426  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

under  the  direction  of  the  King.  Others  thought  that  the 
management  ought  to  be  entrusted  to  the  Lord  Mayor,  Alder- 
men, and  Common  Council  of  the  capital.1  After  the  Revo- 
lution the  subject  was  discussed  with  an  animation  before 
unknown.  For,  under  the  influence  of  liberty,  the  breed  of 
political  projectors  multiplied  exceedingly.  A  crowd  of  plans, 
some  of  which  resemble  the  fancies  of  a  child  or  the  dreams 
of  a  man  in  a  fever,  were  pressed  on  the  government.  Pre-em- 
inently conspicuous  among  the  political  mountebanks,  whose 
busy  faces  were  seen  every  day  in  the  lobby  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  were  John  Briscoe  and  Hugh  Chamberlayne,  two 
projectors  worthy  to  have  been  members  of  that  Academy 
which  Gulliver  found  at  Lagado.  These  men  affirmed  that  the 
one  cure  for  every  distemper  of  the  State  was  a  Land  Bank. 
A  Land  Bank  would  work  for  England  miracles  such  as  had 
never  been  wrought  for  Israel,  miracles  exceeding  the  heaps 
of  quails  and  the  daily  shower  of  manna.  There  would  be  no 
taxes ;  and  yet  the  Exchequer  would  be  full  to  overflowing. 
There  would  be  no  poor  rates ;  for  there  would  be  no  poor. 
The  income  of  every  landowner  would  be  doubled.  The  profits 
of  every-  merchant  would  be  increased.  In  short,  the  island 
would,  to  use  Briscoe's  words,  be  the  paradise  of  the  world. 
The  only  losers  would  be  the  moneyed  men,  those  worst 
enemies  of  the  nation,  who  had  done  more  injury  to  the  gentry 
and  yeomanry  than  an  invading  army  from  France  would  have 
had  the  heart  to  do.2 

These  blessed  effects  the  Land  Bank  was  to  produce  simply 
by  issuing  enormous  quantities  of  notes  on  landed  security. 

1  See  a  pamphlet  entitled  Corporation  Credit ;  or  a  Bank  of  Credit,  made 
Current  by  Common  Consent  in  London,  more  Useful  and  Safe  than  Money. 

2  A  proposal  by  Dr.  Hugh  Chamberlayne,  in  Essex  Street,  for  a  Bank  of 
Secure  Current  Credit  to  be  founded  upon  Land,  in  order  to  the  General 
Good  of  Landed  Men,  to  the  great  Increase  in  the  Value  of  Land,  and  the  no 
less  Benefit  of  Trade  and  Commerce,  1695  ;  Proposals  for  the  supplying  their 
Majesties  with  Money  on  Easy  Terms,  exempting  the  Nobility,  Gentry,  &c., 
from  Taxes,  enlarging  their  Yearly  Estates,  and  enriching  all  the  Subjects  of 
the  Kingdom  by  a  National  Land  Bank ;  by  John  Briscoe.    "  O  fortunatos 
nimium  bona  si  sua  norint  Anglicanos."   Third  Edition,  1696.    Briscoe  seems 
to  have  been  as  much  versed  in  Latin  literature  as  in  political  economy. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  427 

The  doctrine  of  the  projectors  was  that  every  person  who  had 
real  property  ought  to  have,  besides  that  property,  paper 
money  to  the  full  value  of  that  property.  Thus,  if  his  estate 
was  worth  two  thousand  pounds,  he  ought  to  have  his  estate 
and  two  thousand  pounds  in  paper  money.1  Both  Briscoe 
and  Chamberlayne  treated  with  the  greatest  contempt  the 
notion  that  there  could  be  an  overissue  of  paper  as  long  as 
there  was,  for  every  ten  pound  note,  a  piece  of  land  in  the 
country  worth  ten  pounds.  Nobody,  they  said,  would  accuse 
a  goldsmith  of  overissuing  as  long  as  his  vaults  contained 
guineas  and  crowns  to  the  full  value  of  all  the  notes  which 
bore  his  signature.  Indeed  no  goldsmith  had  in  his  vaults 
guineas  and  crowns  to  the  full  value  of  all  his  paper.  And 
was  not  a  square  mile  of  rich  land  in  Taunton  Dean  at  least 
as  well  entitled  to  be  called  wealth  as  a  bag  of  gold  or  silver  ? 
The  projectors  could  not  deny  that  many  people  had  a  prej- 
udice in  favour  of  the  precious  metals,  and  that  therefore,  if 
the  Land  Bank  were  bound  to  cash  its  notes,  it  would  very 
soon  stop  payment.  This  difficulty  they  got  over  by  proposing 
that  the  notes  should  be  inconvertible,  and  that  everybody 
should  be  forced  to  take  them. 

The  speculations  of  Chamberlayne  on  the  subject  of  the  cur- 
rency may  possibly  find  admirers  even  in  our  own  time.  But 
to  his  other  errors  he  added  an  error  which  began  and  ended 
with  him.  He  was  fool  enough  to  take  it  for  granted,  in  all 
his  reasonings,  that  the  value  of  an  estate  varied  directly  as 

1  In  confirmation  of  what  is  said  in  the  text,  I  extract  a  single  paragraph 
from  Briscoe's  proposals.  "Admit  a  gentleman  hath  barely  ioo/.  per  annum 
estate  to  live  on,  and  hath  a  wife  and  four  children  to  provide  for:  this  person, 
supposing  no  taxes  were  upon  his  estates,  must  be  a  great  husband  to  be  able 
to  keep  his  charge,  but  cannot  think  of  laying  up  anything  to  place  out  his 
children  in  the  world:  but  according  to  this  proposed  method  he  may  give  his 
children  5oo/.  a  piece  and  have  go/,  per  annum  left  for  himself  and  his  wife  to 
live  upon,  the  which  he  may  also  leave  to  such  of  his  children  as  he  pleases 
after  his  and  his  wife's  decease.  For  first  having  settled  his  estate  of  ioo/.  per 
annum,  as  in  proposals  i.  3.,  he  may  have  bills  of  credit  for  2OOO/.  for  his  own 
proper  use,  for  IQJ.  per  cent,  per  annum,  as  in  proposal  22.,  which  is  but  io/. 
per  annum  for  the  2ooo/.,  which  being  deducted  out  of  his  estate  of  ioo/.  per 
annum,  there  remains  go/,  per  annum  clear  to  himself."  It  ought  to  be  observed 
that  this  nonsense  reached  a  third  edition. 


428  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  duration.  He  maintained  that  if  the  annual  income  derived 
from  a  manor  were  a  thousand  pounds,  a  grant  of  that  manor 
for  twenty  years  must  be  worth  twenty  thousand  pounds,  and  a 
grant  for  a  hundred  years  worth  a  hundred  thousand  pounds. 
If,  therefore,  the  lord  of  such  a  manor  would  pledge  it  for  a 
hundred  years  to  the  Land  Bank,  the  Land  Bank  might,  on 
that  security,  instantly  issue  notes  for  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  On  this  subject  Chamberlayne  was  proof  even  to 
arithmetical  demonstration.  He  was  reminded  that  the  fee 
simple  of  land  would  not  sell  for  more  than  twenty  years'  pur- 
chase. To  say,  therefore,  that  a  term  of  a  hundred  years  was 
worth  five  times  as  much  as  a  term  of  twenty  years,  was  to 
say  that  a  term  of  a  hundred  years  was  worth  five  times  the  fee 
simple ;  in  other  words,  that  a  hundred  was  five  times  infinity. 
Those  who  reasoned  thus  were  refuted  by  being  told  that  they 
were  usurers;  and  it  should  seem  that  a  large  number  of 
country  gentlemen  thought  the  refutation  complete.1 

In  December,  1693,  Chamberlayne  laid  his  plan,  in  all  its 
naked  absurdity,  before  the  Commons,  and  petitioned  to  be 
heard.  He  confidently  undertook  to  raise  eight  thousand 
pounds  on  every  freehold  estate  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
a  year  which  should  be  brought,  as  he  expressed  it,  into  his 
Land  Bank,  and  this  without  dispossessing  the  freeholder.2 
All  the  squires  in  the  House  must  have  known  that  the  fee 

1  See  Chamberlayne's  Proposal,  his  Positions  supported  by  the  Reasons 
explaining  the  Office  of  Land  Credit,  and  his  Bank  Dialogue.    See  also  an 
excellent  little  tract  on  the  other  side  entitled  "  A  Bank  Dialogue  between 
Dr.  H.  C.  and  a  Country  Gentleman,   1696,"  and  "  Some  Remarks  upon  a 
nameless  and  scurrilous  Libel  entitled  a  Bank  Dialogue  between  Dr.  II .  C. 
and  a  Country  Gentleman,  in  a  Letter  to  a  Person  of  Quality." 

2  Commons'  Journals,  Dec.  7.  1693.    I  am  afraid  that  I  may  be  suspected 
of  exaggerating  the  absurdity  of  this  scheme.    I  therefore  transcribe  the  most 
important  part  of  the  petition.    "  In  consideration  of  the  freeholders  bringing 
their  lands  into  this  bank,  for  a  fund  of  current  credit,  to  be  established  by 
Act  of  Parliament,  it  is  now  proposed  that,  for  every  1 5o/.  per  annum,  secured 
for  150  years,  for  but  one  hundred  yearly  payments  of  TOO/,  per  annum,  free 
from  all  manner  of  taxes  and  deductions  whatsoever,  every  such  freeholder 
shall  receive  4OOO/.  in  the  said  current  credit,  and  shall  have  2ooo/.  more  to  put 
into  the  fishery  stock  for  his  proper  benefit ;  and  there  may  be  further  zoool. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  429 

simple  of  such  an  estate  would  hardly  fetch  three  thousand 
pounds  in  the  market.  That  less  than  the  fee  simple  of  such 
an  estate  could,  by  any  device,  be  made  to  produce  eight 
thousand  pounds,  would,  it  might  have  been  thought,  have 
seemed  incredible  to  the  most  illiterate  foxhunter  that  could 
be  found  on  the  benches.  Distress,  however,  and  animosity 
had  made  the  landed  gentlemen  credulous.  They  insisted  on 
referring  Chamberlayne's  plan  to  a  committee ;  and  the  com- 
mittee reported  that  the  plan  was  practicable,  and  would  tend 
to  the  benefit  of  the  nation.1  But  by  this  time  the  united 
force  of  demonstration  and  derision  had  begun  to  produce  an 
effect  even  on  the  most  ignorant  rustics  in  the  House.  The 
report  lay  unnoticed  on  the  table ;  and  the  country  was  saved 
from  a  calamity  compared  with  which  the  defeat  of  Landen 
and  the  loss  of  the  Smyrna  fleet  would  have  been  blessings. 

All  the  projectors  of  this  busy  time,  however,  were  not  so 
absurd  as  Chamberlayne.  One  among  them,  William  Paterson, 
was  an  ingenious,  though  not  always  a  judicious,  speculator. 
Of  his  early  life  little  is  known  except  that  he  was  a  native  of 
Scotland,  and  that  he  had  been  in  the  West  Indies.  In  what 
character  he  had  visited  the  West  Indies  was  a  matter  about 
which  his  contemporaries  differed.  His  friends  said  that  he 
had  been  a  missionary ;  his  enemies  that  he  had  been  a 
buccaneer.  He  seems  to  have  been  gifted  by  nature  with 
fertile  invention,  an  ardent  temperament,  and  great  powers  of 
persuasion,  and  to  have  acquired  somewhere  in  the  course  of 
his  vagrant  life  a  perfect  knowledge  of  accounts. 

This  man  submitted  to  the  government,  in  1691,  a  plan  of 
a  national  bank ;  and  his  plan  was  favourably  received  both 
by  statesmen  and  by  merchants.  But  years  passed  away ;  and 
nothing  was  done,  till,  in  the  spring  of  1694,  it  became  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  find  some  new  mode  of  defraying  the 

reserved  at  the  Parliament's  disposal  towards  the  carrying  on  this  present 
war.  .  .  .  The  freeholder  is  never  to  quit  the  possession  of  his  said  estate 
unless  the  yearly  rent  happens  to  be  in  arrcar." 
1  Commons'  Journals,  Feb.  5.  169!. 


430  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY  ' 

charges  of  the  war.  Then  at  length  the  scheme  devised  by 
the  poor  and  obscure  Scottish  adventurer  was  taken  up  in 
earnest  by  Montague.  With  Montague  was  closely  allied 
Michael  Godfrey,  the  brother  of  that  Sir  Edmondsbury  Godfrey 
whose  sad  and  mysterious  death  had,  fifteen  years  before,  pro- 
duced a  terrible  outbreak  of  popular  feeling.  Michael  was  one 
of  the  ablest,  most  upright,  and  most  opulent  of  the  merchant 
princes  of  London.  He  was,  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  his  near  connection  with  the  martyr  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  a  zealous  Whig.  Some  of  his  writings  are  still  extant, 
and  prove  him  to  have  had  a  strong  and  clear  mind. 

By  these  two  distinguished  men  Paterson's  scheme  was 
fathered.  Montague  undertook  to  manage  the  House  of 
Commons,  Godfrey  to  manage  the  City.  An  approving  vote 
was  obtained  from  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means ;  and  a 
bill,  the  title  of  which  gave  occasion  to  many  sarcasms,  was 
laid  on  the  table.  It  was  indeed  not  easy  to  guess  that  a  bill, 
which  purported  only  to  impose  a  new  duty  on  tonnage  for 
the  benefit  of  such  persons  as  should  advance  money  towards 
carrying  on  the  war,  was  really  a  bill  creating  the  greatest 
commercial  institution  that  the  world  had  ever  seen. 

The  plan  was  that  twelve  hundred  thousand  pounds  should 
be  borrowed  by  the  government  on  what  was  then  considered 
as  the  moderate  interest  of  eight  per  cent.  In  order  to  induce 
capitalists  to  advance  the  money  promptly  on  terms  so  favour- 
able to  the  public,  the  subscribers  were  to  be  incorporated  by 
the  name  of  the  Governor  and  Company  of  the  Bank  of 
England.  The  corporation  was  to  have  no  exclusive  privilege, 
and  was  to  be  restricted  from  trading  in  anything  but  bills  of 
exchange,  bullion,  and  forfeited  pledges. 

As  soon  as  the  plan  became  generally  known,  a  paper  war 
broke  out  as  furious  as  that  between  the  swearers  and  the  non- 
swearers,  or  as  that  between  the  Old  East  India  Company  and 
the  New  East  India  Company.  The  projectors  who  had  failed 
to  gain  the  ear  of  the  government  fell  like  madmen  on  their 
more  fortunate  brother.  All  the  goldsmiths  and  pawnbrokers 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  431 

set  up  a  howl  of  rage.  Some  discontented  Tories  predicted 
ruin  to  the  monarchy.  It  was  remarkable,  they  said,  that  Banks 
and  Kings  had  never  existed  together.  Banks  were  republican 
institutions.  There  were  flourishing  banks  at  Venice,  at  Genoa, 
at  Amsterdam,  and  at  Hamburg.  But  who  had  ever  heard  of 
a  Bank  of  France  or  a  Bank  of  Spain  ? J  Some  discontented 
Whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  predicted  ruin  to  our  liberties. 
Here,  they  said,  is  an  instrument  of  tyranny  more  formidable 
than  the  High  Commission,  than  the  Star  Chamber,  than  even 
the  fifty  thousand  soldiers  of  Oliver.  The  whole  wealth  of  the 
nation  will  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Tonnage  Bank  —  such  was 
the  nickname  then  in  use  —  and  the  Tonnage  Bank  will  be 
in  the  hands  of  the  Sovereign.  The  power  of  the  purse,  the 
one  great  security  for  all  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  will  be 
transferred  from  the  House  of  Commons  to  the  Governor  and 
Directors  of  the  new  Company.  This  last  consideration  was 
really  of  some  weight,  and  was  allowed  to  be  so  by  the  authors 
of  the  bill.  A  clause  was  therefore  most  properly  inserted 
which  inhibited  the  Bank  from  advancing  money  to  the  Crown 
without  authority  from  Parliament.  Every  infraction  of  this 
salutary  rule  was  to  be  punished  by  forfeiture  of  three  times 
the  sum  advanced ;  and  it  was  provided  that  the  King  should 
not  have  power  to  remit  any  part  of  the  penalty.  » 

The  plan,  thus  amended,  received  the  sanction  of  the  Com- 
mons more  easily  than  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
violence  of  the  adverse  clamour.  In  truth,  the  Parliament  was 
under  duress.  Money  must  be  had,  and  could  in  no  other 
way  be  had  so  easily.  What  passed  when  the  House  had  re- 
solved itself  into  a  committee  cannot  be  discovered  :  but,  while 
the  Speaker  was  in  the  chair,  no  division  took  place. 

The  bill,  however,  was  not  safe  when  it  had  reached  the 
Upper  House.  Some  Lords  suspected  that  the  plan  of  a 
national  bank  had  been  devised  for  the  purpose  of  exalting 
the  moneyed  interest  at  the  expense  of  the  landed  interest. 
Others  thought  that  this  plan,  whether  good  or  bad,  ought  not 

1  Account  of  the  Intended  Bank  of  England,  1694.  • 


432  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

to  have  been  submitted  to  them  in  such  a  form.  Whether  it 
would  be  safe  to  call  into  existence  a  body  which  might  one 
day  rule  the  whole  commercial  world,  and  how  such  a  body 
should  be  constituted,  were  questions  which  ought  not  to  be 
decided  by  one  branch  of  the  Legislature.  The  Peers  ought 
to  be  at  perfect  liberty  to  examine  all  the  details  of  the  pro- 
posed scheme,  to  suggest  amendments,  to  ask  for  conferences. 
It  was  therefore  most  unfair  that  the  law  establishing  the  Bank 
should  be  sent  up  as  part  of  a  law  granting  supplies  to  the 
Crown.  The  Jacobites  entertained  some  hope  that  the  session 
would  end  with  a  quarrel  between  the  Houses,  that  the  Tonnage 
Bill  would  be  lost,  and  that  William  would  enter  on  the  cam- 
paign without  money.  It  was  already  May,  according  to  the 
New  Style.  The  London  season  was  over;  and  many  noble 
families  had  left  Covent  Garden  and  Soho  Square  for  their 
woods  and  hayfields.  But  summonses  were  sent  out.  There  was 
a  violent  rush  of  Earls  and  Barons  back  to  town.  The  benches 
which  had  lately  been  deserted  were  crowded.  The  sittings 
began  at  an  hour  unusually  early,  and  were  prolonged  to  an 
hour  unusually  late.  On  the  day  on  which  the  bill  was  com- 
mitted the  contest  lasted  without  intermission  from  nine  in  the 
morning  till  six  in  the  evening.  Godolphin  was  in  the  chair. 
Nottingham  and  Rochester  proposed  to  strike  out  all  the  clauses 
which  related  to  the  Bank.  Something  was  said  about  the  dan- 
ger of  setting  up  a  gigantic  corporation  which  might  soon  give 
law  to  the  King  and  the  three  Estates  of  the  Realm.  But  the 
Peers  seemed  to  be  most  moved  by  the  appeal  which  was  made 
to  them  as  landlords.  The  whole  scheme,  it  was  asserted,  was 
intended  to  enrich  usurers  at  the  expense  of  the  nobility  and 
gentry.  Persons  who  had  laid  by  money  would  rather  put  it 
into  the  Bank  than  lend  it  on  mortgage  at  moderate  interest. 
Caermarthen  said  little  or.  nothing  in  defence  of  what  was,  in 
truth,  the  work  of  his  rivals  and  enemies.  He  owned  that 
there  were  grave  objections  to  the  mode  in  which  the  Commons 
had  provided  for  the  public  service  of  the  year.  But  would 
their  -Lordships  amend  a  money  bill  ?  Would  they  engage  in 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  433 

a  contest  of  which  the  end  must  be  that  they  must  either  yield, 
or  incur  the  grave  responsibility  of  leaving  the  Channel  with- 
out a  fleet  during  the  summer  ?  This  argument  prevailed;  and, 
on  a  division,  the  amendment  was  rejected  by  forty-three 
votes  to  thirty-one.  A  few  hours  later  the  bill  received  the 
royal  assent,  and  the  Parliament  was  prorogued.1 

In  the  City  the  success  of  Montague's  plan  was  complete. 
It  was  then  at  least  as  difficult  to  raise  a  million  at  eight  per 
cent,  as  it  would  now  be  to  raise  forty  millions  at  four  per  cent. 
It  had  been  supposed  that  contributions  would  drop  in  very 
slowly  ;  and  a  considerable  time  had  therefore  been  allowed 
by  the  Act.  This  indulgence  was  not  needed.  So  popular  was 
the  new  investment  that  on  the  day  on  which  the  books  were 
opened  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  were  subscribed  :  three 
hundred  thousand  more  were  subscribed  during  the  next  forty- 
eight  hours ;  and  in  ten  days,  to  the  delight  of  all  the  friends 
of  the  government,  it  was  announced  that  the  list  was  full. 
The  whole  sum  which  the  Corporation  was  bound  to  lend  to  the 
State  was  paid  into  the  Exchequer  before  the  first  instalment 
was  due.2  Somers  gladly  put  the  Great  Seal  to  a  charter 
framed  in  conformity  with  the  terms  prescribed  by  Parliament ; 
and  the  Bank  of  England  commenced  its  operations  in  the 
house  of  the  Company  of  Grocers.  There,  during  many  years, 
directors,  secretaries,  and  clerks  might  be  seen  labouring  in 
different  parts  of  one  spacious  hall.  The  persons  employed  by 
the  Bank  were  originally  only  fifty-four.  They  are  now  nine 
hundred.  The  sum  paid  yearly  in  salaries  amounted  at  first  to 
only  four  thousand  three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  It  now 
exceeds  two  hundred  and  ten  thousand  pounds.  We  may  there- 
fore fairly  infer  that  the  incomes  of  commercial  clerks  are,  on 
an  average,  about  three  times  as  large  in  the  reign  of  Victoria 
as  they  were  in  the  reign  of  William  the  Third.3 

1  See  the  Lords'  Journals  of  April   23,   24,  25.    1694,  and  the  letter  of 
L'Hermitage  to  the  States  General  dated  Apr"  "4' 

May  4. 

2  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary,  June,  1694. 

8  Heath's  Account  of  the  Worshipful  Company  of  Grocers ;  Francis's 
History  of  the  Bank  of  England. 


434  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

It  soon  appeared  that  Montague  had,  by  skilfully  availing 
himself  of  the  financial  difficulties  of  the  country,  rendered  an 
inestimable  service  to  his  party.  During  several  generations 
the  Bank  of  England  was  emphatically  a  Whig  body.  It  was 
Whig,  not  accidentally,  but  necessarily.  It  must  have  instantly 
stopped  payment  if  it  had  ceased  to  receive  the  interest  on  the 
sum  which  it  had  advanced  to  the  government ;  and  of  that 
interest  James  would  not  have  paid  one  farthing.  Seventeen 
years  after  the  passing  of  the  Tonnage  Bill,  Addison,  in  one 
of  his  most  ingenious  and  graceful  little  allegories,  described 
the  situation  of  the  great  Company  through  which  the  immense 
wealth  of  London  was  constantly  circulating.  He  saw  Public 
Credit  on  her  throne  in  Grocers'  Hall,  the  Great  Charter  over 
her  head,  the  Act  of  Settlement  full  in  her  view.  Her  touch 
turned  everything  to  gold.  Behind  her  seat,  bags  filled  with 
coin  were  piled  up  to  the  ceiling.  On  her  right  and  on  her 
left  the  floor  was  hidden  by  pyramids  of  guineas.  On  a  sudden 
the  door  flies  open.  The  Pretender  rushes  in,  a  sponge  in 
one  hand,  in  the  other  a  sword  which  he  shakes  at  the  Act  of 
Settlement.  The  beautiful  Queen  sinks  down  fainting.  The 
spell  by  which  she  has  turned  all  things  around  her  into  treas- 
ure is  broken.  The  money  bags  shrink  like  pricked  bladders. 
The  piles  of  gold  pieces  are  turned  into  bundles  of  rags  or 
faggots  of  wooden  tallies.1  The  truth  which  this  parable  was 
meant  to  convey  was  constantly  present  to  the  minds  of  the 
rulers  of  the  Bank.  So  closely  was  their  interest  bound  up 
with  the  interest  of  the  government  that  the  greater  the  pub- 
lic danger  the  more  ready  were  they  to  come  to  the  rescue. 
Formerly,  when  the  Treasury  was  empty,  when  the  taxes  came 
in  slowly,  and  when  the  pay  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors  was  in 
arrear,  it  had  been  necessary  for  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer to  go,  hat  in  hand,  up  and  down  Cheapside  and 
Cornhill,  attended  by  the  Lord  Mayor  and  the  Aldermen, 
and  to  make  up  a  sum  by  borrowing  a  hundred  pounds  from 
this  hosier,  and  two  hundred  pounds  from  that  ironmonger.2 

1  Spectator,  No.  3. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  Wednesday  Club  in  Friday  Street. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  435 

Those  times  were  over.  The  government,  instead  of  labori- 
ously scooping  up  supplies  from  numerous  petty  sources,  could 
now  draw  whatever  it  required  from  one  immense  reservoir, 
which  all  those  petty  sources  kept  constantly  replenished.  It 
is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that,  during  many  years,  the  weight 
of  the  Bank,  which  was  constantly  in  the  scale  of  the  Whigs, 
almost  counterbalanced  the  weight  of  the  Church,  which  was 
as  constantly  in  the  scale  of  the  Tories. 


(/)  THE  DEATH  OF  MARY 

William  came  in  state  on  that  day  [i.e.  the  day  for  the  con- 
sideration of  the  bill  providing  for  triennial  Parliaments]  to 
Westminster.  The  attendance  of  members  of  both  Houses  was 
large.  When  the  Clerk  of  the  Crown  read  the  words,  "  A  Bill 
for  the  frequent  Calling  and  Meeting  of  Parliaments,"  the 
anxiety  was  great.  When  the  Clerk  of  the  Parliament  made 
answer,  "  Le  roy  et  la  royne  le  veulent,"  a  loud  and  long  hum 
of  delight  and  exultation  rose  from  the  benches  and  the  bar.1 
William  had  resolved  many  months  before  not  to  refuse  his 
assent  a  second  time  to  so  popular  a  law.2  There  were  some, 
however,  who  thought  that  he  would  not  have  made  so  great 
a  concession  if  he  had  on  that  day  been  quite  himself.  It  was 
plain  indeed  that  he  was  strangely  agitated  and  unnerved.  It 
had  been  announced  that  he  would  dine  in  public  at  Whitehall. 
But  he  disappointed  the  curiosity  of  the  multitude  which  on 
such  occasions  flocked  to  the  Court,  and  hurried  back  to 
Kensington.3 

He  had  but  too  good  reason  to  be  uneasy.  His  wife  had, 
during  two  or  three  days,  been  poorly ;  and  on  the  preceding 
evening  grave  symptoms  had  appeared.  Sir  Thomas  Milling- 
ton,  who  was  physician  in  ordinary  to  the  King,  thought  that 
she  had  the  measles.  But  Radcliffe,  who,  with  coarse  manners 

1MThe  Commons,"  says  Narcissus  Luttrell,  "gave  a  great  hum."  "  Le 
murmure  qui  est  la  marque  d'applaudissement  fut  si  grand  qu'on  peut  dire 
qu'il  estoit  universel. "  —  L'Hermitage,  ^ 

a  L'Hermitage  says  this  in  his  despatch  of  Nov.  f#. 

8  Burnet,  ii.  137  ;  Van  Citters,  ^ 


436  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  little  book  learning,  had  raised  himself  to  the  first  practice 
in  London  chiefly  by  his  rare  skill  in  diagnostics,  uttered  the 
more  alarming  words,  small  pox.  That  disease,  over  which 
science  has  since  achieved  a  succession  of  glorious  and  benefi- 
cent victories,  was  then  the  most  terrible  of  all  the  ministers 
of  death.  The  havoc  of  the  plague  had  been  far  more  rapid  : 
but  the  plague  had  visited  our  shores  only  once  or  twice  within 
living  memory ;  and  the  small  pox  was  always  present,  filling 
the  churchyards  with  corpses,  tormenting  with  constant  fears 
all  whom  it  had  not  yet  stricken,  leaving  on  those  whose  lives 
it  spared  the  hideous  traces  of  its  power,  turning  the  babe  into 
a  changeling  at  which  the  mother  shuddered,  and  making  the 
eyes  and  cheeks  of  the  betrothed  maiden  objects  of  horror  to 
the  lover.  Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1694,  this  pestilence 
was  more  than  usually  severe.  At  length  the  infection  spread 
to  the  palace,  and  reached  the  young  and  blooming  Queen. 
She  received  the  intimation  of  her  danger  with  true  greatness 
of  soul.  She  gave  orders  that  every  lady  of  her  bedchamber, 
every  maid  of  honour,  nay,  every  menial  servant,  who  had  not 
had  the  small  pox,  should  instantly  leave  Kensington  House. 
She  locked  herself  up  during  a  short  time  in  her  closet, 
burned  some  papers,  arranged  others,  and  then  calmly 
awaited  her  fate. 

During  two  or  three  days  there  Were  many  alternations  of 
hope  and  fear.  The  physicians  contradicted  each  other  and 
themselves  in  a  way  which  sufficiently  indicates  the  state  of 
medical  science  in  that  age.  The  disease  was  measles  :  it  was 
scarlet  fever :  it  was  spotted  fever :  it  was  erysipelas.  At  one 
moment  some  symptoms,  which  in  truth  showed  that  the  case 
was  almost  hopeless,  were  hailed  as  indications  of  returning 
health.  At  length  all  doubt  was  over.  Radcliffe's  opinion 
proved  to  be  right.  It  was  plain  that  the  Queen  was  sinking 
under  small  pox  of  the  most  malignant  type. 

All  this  time  William  remained  night  and  day  near  her 
bedside.  The  little  couch  on  which  he  slept  when  he  was  in 
camp  was  spread  for  him  in  the  antechamber :  but  he  scarcely 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  437 

lay  down  on  it.  The  sight  of  his  misery,  the  Dutch  Envoy 
wrote,  was  enough  to  melt  the  hardest  heart.  Nothing  seemed 
to  be  left  of  the  man  whose  serene  fortitude  had  been  the 
wonder  of  old  soldiers  on  the  disastrous  day  of  Landen,  and  of 
old  sailors  through  that  fearful  night  among  the  sheets  of  ice 
and  banks  of  sand  on  the  coast  of  Goree.  The  very  domestics 
saw  the  tears  running  unchecked  down  that  face,  of  which  the 
stern  composure  had  seldom  been  disturbed  by  any  triumph  or 
by  any  defeat.  Several  of  the  prelates  were  in  attendance. 
The  King  drew  Burnet  aside,  and  gave  way  to  an  agony  of 
grief.  "  There  is  no  hope,"  he  cried.  "  I  was  the  happiest 
man  on  earth ;  and  I  am  the  most  miserable.  She  had  no 
fault ;  none :  you  knew  her  well :  but  you  could  not  know, 
nobody  but  myself  could  know,  her  goodness."  Tenison 
undertook  to  tell  her  that  she  was  dying.  He  was  afraid  that 
such  a  communication,  abruptly  made,  might  agitate  her  vio- 
lently, and  began  with  much  management.  But  she  soon 
caught  his  meaning,  and,  with  that  gentle  womanly  courage 
which  so  often  puts  our  bravery  to  shame,  submitted  herself 
to  the  will  of  God.  She  called  for  a  small  cabinet  in  which 
her  most  important  papers  were  locked  up,  gave  orders  that, 
as  soon  as  she  was  no  more,  it  should  be  delivered  to  the. 
King,  and  then  dismissed  worldly  cares  from  her  mind.  She 
received  the  Eucharist,  and  repeated  her  part  of  the  office 
with  unimpaired  memory  and  intelligence,  though  in  a  feeble 
voice.  She  observed  that  Tenison  had  been  long  standing  at 
her  bedside,  and,  with  that  sweet  courtesy  which  was  habitual 
to  her,  faltered  out  her  commands  that  he  would  sit  down, 
and  repeated  them  till  he  obeyed.  After  she  had  received  the 
sacrament  she  sank  rapidly,  and  uttered  only  a  few  broken 
words.  Twice  she  tried  to  take  a  last  farewell  of  him  whom 
she  had  loved  so  truly  and  entirely :  but  she  was  unable  to 
speak.  He  had  a  succession  of  fits  so  alarming  that  his  Privy 
Councillors,  who  were  assembled  in  a  neighbouring  room, 
were  apprehensive  for  his  reason  and  his  life.  The  Duke  of 
Leeds,  at  the  request  of  his  colleagues,  ventured  to  assume 


438  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

the  friendly  guardianship  of  which  minds  deranged  by  sorrow 
stand  in  need.  A  few  minutes  before  the  Queen  expired, 
William  was  removed,  almost  insensible,  from  the  sick  room. 

Mary  died  in  peace  with  Anne.  Before  the  physicians  had 
pronounced  the  case  hopeless,  the  Princess,  who  was  then  in 
very  delicate  health,  had  sent  a  kind  message ;  and  Mary  had 
returned  a  kind  answer.  The  Princess  had  then  proposed  to 
come  herself :  but  William  had,  in  very  gracious  terms, 
declined  the  offer.  The  excitement  of  an  interview,  he  said, 
would  be  too  much  for  both  sisters.  If  a  favourable  turn  took 
place,  Her  Royal  Highness  should  be  most  welcome  to 
Kensington.  A  few  hours  later  all  was  over.1 

The  public  sorrow  was  great  and  general.  For  Mary's 
blameless  life,  her  large  charities,  and  her  winning  manners 
had  conquered  the  hearts  of  her  people.  When  the  Commons 
next  met  they  sat  for  a  time  in  profound  silence.  At  length 
it  was  moved  and  resolved  that  an  Address  of  Condolence 
should  be  presented  to  the  King ;  and  then  the  House  broke 
up  without  proceeding  to  other  business.  The  Dutch  Envoy  in- 
formed the  States  General  that  many  of  the  members  had 
handkerchiefs  at  their  eyes.  The  number  of  sad  faces  in  the 
.  street  struck  every  observer.  The  mourning  was  more  general 
than  even  the  mourning  for  Charles  the  Second  had  been. 
On  the  Sunday  which  followed  the  Queen's  death  her  virtues 
were  celebrated  in  almost  every  parish  church  of  the  Capital, 
and  in  almost  every  great  meeting  of  nonconformists.2 

The  most  estimable  Jacobites  respected  the  sorrow  of 
William  and  the  memory  of  Mary.  But  to  the  fiercer  zealots 
of  the  party  neither  the  house  of  mourning  nor  the  grave  was 

1  Burnet,   ii.   136.    138;   Narcissus   Luttrell's  Diary;   Van  Citters,  -j^-jf 
169$;    L'Hermitage    j^  5f£i^;    jan.   ^.    Vernon  to   Lord   Lexington, 
Dec.  21.  25.  28,   Jan.  i;  Tenison's  Funeral  Sermon. 

2  Evelyn's    Diary;     Narcissus     Luttrell's    Diary;     Commons'    Journals, 
Dec.  28.  1694;  Shrewsbury  to  Lexington,  of  the  same  date;  Van  Citters  of 
the  same  date;  L'Hermitage,  Jan.  TTT.  1695.    Among  the  sermons  on  Mary's 
death,  that  of  Sherlock,  preached  in  the  Temple  Church,  and  those  of  Howe 
and  Bates,  preached  to  great  Presbyterian  congregations,  deserve  notice. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  439 

sacred.  At  Bristol  the  adherents  of  Sir  John  Knight  rang  the 
bells  as  if  for  a  victory.1  It  has  often  been  repeated,  and  is 
not  at  all  improbable,  that  a  nonjuring  divine,  in  the  midst 
of  the  general  lamentation,  preached  on  the  text,  "  Go :  see 
now  this  cursed  woman  and  bury  her ;  for  she  is  a  King's 
daughter."  It  is  certain  that  some  of  the  ejected  priests 
pursued  her  to  the  grave  with  invectives.  Her  death,  they 
said,  was  evidently  a  judgment  for  her  crime.  God  had,  from 
the  top  of  Sinai,  in  thunder  and  lightning,  promised  length  of 
days  to  children  who  should  honour  their  parents  ;  and  in  this 
promise  was  plainly  implied  a  menace.  What  father  had  ever 
been  worse  treated  by  his  daughters  than  James  by  Mary  and 
Anne  ?  Mary  was  gone,  cut  off  in  the  prime  of  life,  in  the 
glow  of  beauty,  in  the  height  of  prosperity ;  and  Anne  would 
do  well  to  profit  by  the  warning.  Wagstaffe  went  further,  and 
dwelt  much  on  certain  wonderful  coincidences  of  time.  James 
had  been  driven  from  his  palace  and  country  in  Christmas 
week.  Mary  had  died  in  Christmas  week.  There  could  be 
no  doubt  that,  if  the  secrets  of  Providence  were  disclosed  to 
us,  we  should  find  that  the  turns  of  the  daughter's  complaint 
in  December,  1694,  bore  an  exact  analogy  to  the  turns  of  the 
father's  fortune  in  December,  1688.  It  was  at  midnight  that 
the  father  ran  away  from  Rochester :  it  was  at  midnight  that 
the  daughter  expired.  Such  was  the  profundity  and  such  the 
ingenuity  of  a  writer  whom  the  Jacobite  schismatics  justly 
regarded  as  one  of  their  ablest  chiefs.2 

The  Whigs  soon  had  an  opportunity  of  retaliating.  They 
triumphantly  related  that  a  scrivener  in  the  Borough,  a  stanch 
friend  of  hereditary  right,  while  exulting  in  the  judgment  which 
had  overtaken  the  Queen,  had  himself  fallen  down  dead  in  a  fit.8 

The  funeral  was  long  remembered  as  the  saddest  and  most 
august  that  Westminster  had  ever  seen.  While  the  Queen's 
remains  lay  in  state  at  Whitehall,  the  neighbouring  streets  were 

.  l  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 

2  Remarks  on  some  late  Sermons,  1695;  A  Defence  of  the  Archbishop's 
Sermon,  1695.  8  Narcissus  Luttrell's  Diary. 


440  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

filled  every  day,  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  by  crowds  which  made 
all  traffic  impossible.  The  two  Houses,  with  their  maces,  fol- 
lowed the  hearse,  the  Lords  robed  in  scarlet  and  ermine,  the 
Commons  in  long  black  mantles.  No  preceding  Sovereign 
had  ever  been  attended  to  the  grave  by  a  Parliament :  for,  till 
then,  the  Parliament  had  always  expired  with  the  Sovereign. 
A  paper  had  indeed  been  circulated,  in  which  the  logic  of  a 
small  sharp  pettifogger  was  employed  to  prove  that  writs, 
issued  in  the  joint  names  of  William  and  Mary,  ceased  to  be  of 
force  as  soon  as  William  reigned  alone.  But  this  paltry  cavil 
had  completely  failed.  It  had  not  even  been  mentioned  in  the 
Lower  House,  and  had  been  mentioned  in  the  Upper  only  to 
be  contemptuously  overruled.  The  whole  Magistracy  of  the 
City  swelled  the  procession.  The  banners  of  England  and 
France,  Scotland  and  Ireland,  were  carried  by  great  nobles 
before  the  corpse.  The  pall  was  borne  by  the  chiefs  of  the 
illustrious  houses  of  Howard,  Seymour,  Grey,  and  Stanley.  On 
the  gorgeous  coffin  of  purple  and  gold  were  laid  the  crown  and 
sceptre  of  the  realm.  The  day  was  well  suited  to  such  a  cere- 
mony. The  sky  was  dark  and  troubled ;  and  a  few  ghastly 
flakes  of  snow  fell  on  the  black  plumes  of  the  funeral  car. 
Within  the  Abbey,  nave,  choir,  and  transept  were  in  a  blaze 
with  innumerable  waxlights.  The  body  was  deposited  under 
a  magnificent  canopy  in  the  centre  of  the  church  while  the 
Primate  preached.  The  earlier  part  of  his  discourse  was  de- 
formed by  pedantic  divisions  and  subdivisions :  but  towards 
the  close  he  told  what  he  had  himself  seen  and  heard  with  a 
simplicity  and  earnestness  more  affecting  than  the  most  skilful 
rhetoric.  Through  the  whole  ceremony  the  distant  booming 
of  cannon  was  heard  every  minute  from  the  batteries  of  the 
Tower.  The  gentle  Queen  sleeps  among  her  illustrious  kin- 
dred in  the  southern  aisle  of  the  Chapel  of  Henry  the  Seventh.1 
The  affection  with  which  her  husband  cherished  her  memory 
was  soon  attested  by  a  monument  the  most  superb  that  was 

1  L'Hermitage,  March  T'T.  ^.  1695 ;  London  Gazette,  March  7 ;  Tenison's 
Funeral  Sermon;  Evelyn's  Diary. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  441 

ever  erected  to  any  sovereign.  No  scheme  had  been  so  much 
her  own,  none  had  been  so  near  her  heart,  as  that  of  convert- 
ing the  palace  at  Greenwich  into  a  retreat  for  seamen.  It  had 
occurred  to  her  when  she  had  found  it  difficult  to  provide  good 
shelter  and  good  attendance  for  the  thousands  of  brave  men 
who  had  come  back  to  England  wounded  after  the  battle  of 
La  Hogue.  While  she  lived,  scarcely  any  step  was  taken 
towards  the  accomplishing  of  her  favourite  design.  But  it 
should  seem  that,  as  soon  as  her  husband  had  lost  her,  he 
began  to  reproach  himself  for  having  neglected  her  wishes. 
No  time  was  lost.  A  plan  was  furnished  by  Wren  ;  and  soon 
an  edifice,  surpassing  that  asylum  which  the  magnificent  Louis 
had  provided  for  his  soldiers,  rose  on  the  margin  of  the 
Thames.  Whoever  reads  the  inscription  which  runs  round  the 
frieze  of  the  hall  will  observe  that  William  claims  no  part  of 
the  merit  of  the  design,  and  that  the  praise  is  ascribed  to 
Mary  alone.  Had  the  King's  life  been  prolonged  till  the 
works  were  completed,  a  statue  of  her  who  was  the  real 
foundress  of  the  institution  would  have  had  a  conspicuous 
place  in  that  court  which  presents  two  lofty  domes  and  two 
graceful  colonnades  to  the  multitudes  who  are  perpetually  pass- 
ing up  and  down  the  imperial  river.  But  that  part  of  the 
plan  was  never  carried  into  effect ;  and  few  of  those  who  now 
gaze  on  the  noblest  of  European  hospitals  are  aware  that  it  is 
a  memorial  of  the  virtues  of  the  good  Queen  Mary,  of  the  love 
and  sorrow  of  William,  and  of  the  great  victory  of  La  Hogue. 

(k)  THE  VISIT  OF  PETER  THE  GREAT  TO  LONDON 

In  the  same  week  in  which  Whitehall  perished,  the  London- 
ers were  supplied  with  a  new  topic  of  conversation  by  a  royal 
visit,  which,  of  all  royal  visits,  was  the  least  pompous  and 
ceremonious  and  yet  the  most  interesting  and  important.  On 
the  loth  of  January  a  vessel  from  Holland  anchored  off  Green- 
wich and  was  welcomed  with  great  respect.  Peter  the  First, 
Czar  of  Muscovy,  was  on  board.  He  took  boat  with  a  few 


442  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

attendants  and  was  rowed  up  the  Thames  to  Norfolk  Street, 
where  a  house  overlooking  the  river  had  been  prepared  for 
his  reception. 

His  journey  is  an  epoch  in  the  history,  not  only  of  his  own 
country,  but  of  ours,  and  of  the  world.  To  the  polished 
nations  of  Western  Europe,  the  empire  which  he  governed 
had  till  then  been  what  Bokhara  or  Siam  is  to  us.  That 
empire  indeed,  though  less  extensive  than  at  present,  was  the 
most  extensive  that  had  ever  obeyed  a  single  chief.  The 
dominions  of  Alexander  and  of  Trajan  were  small  when  com- 
pared with  the  immense  area  of  the  Scythian  desert.  But 
in  the  estimation  of  statesmen  that  boundless  expanse  of  larch 
forest  and  morass,  where  the  snow  lay  deep  during  eight 
months  of  every  year,  and  where  a  wretched  peasantry  could 
with  difficulty  defend  their  hovels  against  troops  of  famished 
wolves,  was  of  less  account  than  the  two  or  three  square  miles 
into  which  were  crowded  the  countinghouses,  the  warehouses, 
and  the  innumerable  masts  of  Amsterdam.  On  the  Baltic 
Russia  had  not  then  a  single  port.  Her  maritime  trade  with 
the  other  nations  of  Christendom  was  entirely  carried  on  at 
Archangel,  a  place  which  had  been  created  and  was  supported 
by  adventurers  from  our  island.  In  the  days  of  the  Tudors, 
a  ship  from  England,  seeking  a  northeast  passage  to  the  land 
of  silk  and  spice,  had  discovered  the  White  Sea.  The  bar- 
barians who  dwelt  on  the  shores  of  that  dreary  gulf  had 
never  before  seen  such  a  portent  as  a  vessel  of  a  hundred  and 
sixty  tons  burden.  They  fled  in  terror ;  and  when  they  were 
pursued  and  overtaken,  prostrated  themselves  before  the  chief 
of  the  strangers  and  kissed  his  feet.  He  succeeded  in  opening 
a  friendly  communication  with  them ;  and  from  that  time 
there  had  been  a  regular  commercial  intercourse  between  our 
country  and  the  subjects  of  the  Czar.  A  Russia  Company 
was  incorporated  in  London.  An  English  factory  was  built 
at  Archangel.  That  factory  was  indeed,  even  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a  rude  and  mean  building. 
The  walls  consisted  of  trees  laid  one  upon  another ;  and  the 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  443 

roof  was  of  birch  bark.  This  shelter,  however,  was  sufficient 
in  the  long  summer  day  of  the  Arctic  regions.  Regularly  at 
that  season  several  English  ships  cast  anchor  in  the  bay.  A 
fair  was  held  on  the  beach.  Traders  came  from  a  distance  of 
many  hundreds  of  miles  to  the  only  mart  where  they  could 
exchange  hemp  and  tar,  hides  and  tallow,  wax  and  honey,  the 
fur  of  the  sable  and  the  wolverine,  and  the  roe  of  the  sturgeon 
of  the  Volga,  for  Manchester  stuffs,  Sheffield  knives,  Birming- 
ham buttons,  sugar  from  Jamaica,  and  pepper  from  Malabar. 
The  commerce  in  these  articles  was  open.  But  there  was  a 
secret  traffic  which  was  not  less  active  or  less  lucrative,  though 
the  Russian  laws  had  made  it  punishable,  and  though  the 
Russian  divines  pronounced  it  damnable.  In  general  the  man- 
dates of  princes  and  the  lessons  of  priests  were  received  by 
the  Muscovite  with  profound  reverence.  But  the  authority 
of  his  princes  and  of  his  priests  united  could  not  keep  him 
from  tobacco.  Pipes  he  could  not  obtain  ;  but  a  cow's  horn 
perforated  served  his  turn.  From  every  Archangel  fair  rolls 
of  the  best  Virginia  speedily  found  their  way  to  Novgorod  and 
Tobolsk. 

The  commercial  intercourse  between  England  and  Russia 
made  some  diplomatic  intercourse  necessary.  The  diplomatic 
intercourse,  however,  was  only  occasional.  The  Czar  had  no 
permanent  minister  here.  We  had  no  permanent  minister  at 
Moscow ;  and  even  at  Archangel  we  had  no  consul.  Three 
or  four  times  in  a  century  extraordinary  embassies  were  sent 
from  Whitehall  to  the  Kremlin  and  from  the  Kremlin  to 
Whitehall. 

The  English  embassies  had  historians  whose  narratives  may 
still  be  read  with  interest.  Those  historians  described  vividly, 
and  sometimes  bitterly,  the  savage  ignorance  and  the  squalid 
poverty  of  the  barbarous  country  in  which  they  had  sojourned. 
In  that  country,  they  said,  there  was  neither  literature  nor 
science,  neither  school  nor  college.  It  was  not  till  more  than 
a  hundred  years  after  the  invention  of  printing  that  a  single 
printing  press  had  been  introduced  into  the  Russian  empire ; 


444  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  that  printing  press  had  speedily  perished  in  a  fire  which 
was  supposed  to  have  been  kindled  by  the  priests.  Even  in 
the  seventeenth  century  the  library  of  a  prelate  of  the  first 
dignity  consisted  of  a  few  manuscripts.  Those  manuscripts 
too  were  in  long  rolls :  for  the  art  of  bookbinding  was  un- 
known. The  best-educated  men  could  barely  read  and  write. 
It  was  much  if  the  secretary  to  whom  was  entrusted  the 
direction  of  negotiations  with  foreign  powers  had  a  sufficient 
smattering  of  Dog  Latin  to  make  himself  understood.  The 
arithmetic  was  the  arithmetic  of  the  dark  ages.  The  denary 
notation  was  unknown.  Even  in  the  Imperial  Treasury  the 
computations  were  made  by  the  help  of  balls  strung  on  wires. 
Round  the  person  of  the  Sovereign  there  was  a  blaze  of 
gold  and  jewels :  but  even  in  his  most  splendid  palaces  were 
to  be  found  the  filth  and  misery  of  an  Irish  cabin.  So  late 
as  the  year  1663  the  gentlemen  of  the  retinue  of  the  Earl 
of  Carlisle  were,  in  the  city  of  Moscow,  thrust  into  a  single 
bedroom,  and  were  told  that,  if x  they  did  not  remain  together, 
they  would  be  in  danger  of  being  devoured  by  rats. 

Such  was  the  report  which  the  English  legations  made  of 
what  they  had  seen  and  suffered  in  Russia ;  and  their  evidence 
was  confirmed  by  the  appearance  which  the  Russian  legations 
made  in  England.  The  strangers  spoke  no  civilized  language. 
Their  garb,  their  gestures,  their  salutations,  had  a  wild  and 
barbarous  character.  The  ambassador  and  the  grandees  who 
accompanied  him  were  so  gorgeous  that  all  London  crowded 
to  stare  at  them,  and  so  filthy  that  nobody  dared  to  touch 
them.  They  came  to  the  court  balls  dropping  pearls  and 
vermin.  It  was  said  that  one  envoy  cudgelled  the  lords  of  his 
train  whenever  they  soiled  or  lost  any  part  of  their  finery,  and 
that  another  had  with  difficulty  been  prevented  from  putting 
his  son  to  death  for  the  crime  of  shaving  and  dressing  after 
the  French  fashion. 

Our  ancestors  therefore  were  not  a  little  surprised  to  learn 
that  a  young  barbarian,  who  had,  at  seventeen  years  of  age, 
become  the  autocrat  of  the  immense  region  stretching  from  the 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  445 

confines  of  Sweden  to  those  of  China,  and  whose  education 
had  been  inferior  to  that  of  an  English  farmer  or  shopman, 
had  planned  gigantic  improvements ;  had  learned  enough  of 
some  languages  of  Western  Europe  to  enable  him  to  com- 
municate with  civilized  men ;  had  begun  to  surround  himself 
with  able  adventurers  from  various  parts  of  the  world ;  had  sent 
many  of  his  young  subjects  to  study  languages,  arts,  and 
sciences  in  foreign  cities ;  and  finally  had  determined  to  travel 
as  a  private  man,  and  to  discover,  by  personal  observation,  the 
secret  of  the  immense  prosperity  and  power  enjoyed  by  some 
communities  whose  whole  territory  was  far  less  than  the 
hundredth  part  of  his  dominions. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  France  would  have  been 
the  first  object  of  his  curiosity.  For  the  grace  and  dignity  of 
the  French  King,  the  splendour  of  the  French  Court,  the  dis- 
cipline of  the  French  armies,  and  the  genius  and  learning  of 
the  French  writers,  were  then  renowned  all  over  the  world. 
But  the  Czar's  mind  had  early  taken  a  strange  ply  which  it 
retained  to  the  last.  His  empire  was  of  all  empires  the  least 
capable  of  being  made  a  great  naval  power.  The  Swedish 
provinces  lay  between  his  States  and  the  Baltic.  The  Bosporus 
and  the  Dardanelles  lay  between  his  States  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean. He  had  access  to  the  ocean  only  in  a  latitude  in  which 
navigation  is,  during  a  great  part  of  every  year,  perilous  and 
difficult  On  the  ocean  he  had  only  a  single  port,  Archangel; 
and  the  whole  shipping  of  Archangel  was  foreign.  There  did 
not  exist  a  Russian  vessel  larger  than  a  fishing-boat.  Yet, 
from  some  cause  which  cannot  now  be  traced,  he  had  a  taste 
for  maritime  pursuits  which  amounted  to  a  passion,  indeed 
almost  to  a  monomania.  His  imagination  was  full  of  sails, 
yardarms,  and  rudders.  That  large  mind,  equal  to  the  highest 
duties  of  the  general  and  the  statesman,  contracted  itself  to 
the  most  minute  details  of  naval  architecture  and  naval  disci- 
pline. The  chief  ambition  of  the  great  conqueror  and  legislator 
was  to  be  a  good  boatswain  and  a  good  ship's  carpenter. 
Holland  and  England,  therefore,  had  for  him  an  attraction 


446  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

which  was  wanting  to  the  galleries  and  terraces  of  Versailles. 
He  repaired  to  Amsterdam,  took  a  lodging  in  the  dockyard, 
assumed  the  garb  of  a  pilot,  put  down  his  name  on  the  list  of 
workmen,  wielded  with  his  own  hand  the  caulking  iron  and 
the  mallet,  fixed  the  pumps,  and  twisted  the  ropes.  Ambassa- 
dors who  came  to  pay  their  respects  to  him  were  forced,  much 
against  their  will,  to  clamber  up  the  rigging  of  a  man-of-war, 
and  found  him  enthroned  on  the  crosstrees. 

Such  was  the  prince  whom  the  populace  of  London  now 
crowded  to  behold.  His  stately  form,  his  intellectual  fore- 
head, his  piercing  black  eyes,  his  Tartar  nose  and  mouth,  his 
gracious  smile,  his  frown  black  with  all  the  stormy  rage  and  hate 
of  a  barbarian  tyrant,  and  above  all  a  strange  nervous  convul- 
sion which  sometimes  transformed  his  countenance,  during  a 
few  moments,  into  an  object  on  which  it  was  impossible  to 
look  without  terror,  the  immense  quantities  of  meat  which 
he  devoured,  the  pints  of  brandy  which  he  swallowed,  and 
which,  it  was  said,  he  had  carefully  distilled  with  his  own  hands, 
the  fool  who  jabbered  at  his  feet,  the  monkey  which  grinned 
at  the  back  of  his  chair,  were,  during  some  weeks,  popular 
topics  of  conversation.  He  meanwhile  shunned  the  public 
gaze  with  a  haughty  shyness  which  inflamed  curiosity.  He 
went  to  a  play ;  but,  as  soon  as  he  perceived  that  pit,  boxes, 
and  galleries  were  staring,  not  at  the  stage,  but  at  him,  he 
retired  to  a  back  bench  where  he  was  screened  from  observa- 
tion by  his  attendants.  He  was  desirous  to  see  a  sitting  of  the 
House  of  Lords ;  but,  as  he  was  determined  not  to  be  seen,  he 
was  forced  to  climb  up  to  the  leads,  and  to  peep  through  a 
small  window.  He  heard  with  great  interest  the  royal  assent 
given  to  a  bill  for  raising  fifteen  hundred  thousand  pounds  by 
land  tax,  and  learned  with  amazement  that  this  sum,  though 
larger  by  one  half  than  the  whole  revenue  which  he  could 
wring  from  the  population  of  the  immense  empire  of  which 
he  was  absolute  master,  was  but  a  small  part  of  what  the 
Commons  of  England  voluntarily  granted  every  year  to  their 
constitutional  King. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  447 

William  judiciously  humoured  the  whims  of  his  illustrious 
guest,  and  stole  to  Norfolk  Street  so  quietly  that  nobody  in  the 
neighbourhood  recognized  His  Majesty  in  the  thin  gentleman 
who  got  out  of  the  modest-looking  coach  at  the  Czar's  lodgings. 
The  Czar  returned  the  visit  with  the  same  precautions,  and  was 
admitted  into  Kensington  House  by  a  back  door.  It  was 
afterwards  known  that  he  took  no  notice  of  the  fine  pictures 
with  which  the  palace  was  adorned.  But  over  the  chimney  of 
the  royal  sitting  room  was  a  plate  which,  by  an  ingenious 
machinery,  indicated  the  direction  of  the  wind;,  and  with  this 
plate  he  was  in  raptures. 

He  soon  became  weary  of  his  residence.  He  found  that  he 
was  too  far  from  the  objects  of  his  curiosity,  and  too  near  to 
the  crowds  to  which  he  was  himself  an  object  of  curiosity.  He 
accordingly  removed  to  Deptford,  and  was  there  lodged  in  the 
house  of  John  Evelyn  —  a  house  which  had  long  been  a  favour- 
ite resort  of  men  of  letters,  men  of  taste,  and  men  of  science. 
Here  Peter  gave  himself  up  to  his  favourite  pursuits.  He  navi- 
gated a  yacht  every  day  up  and  down  the  river.  His  apartment 
was  crowded  with  models  of  three  deckers  and  two  deckers, 
frigates,  sloops,  and  fireships.  The  only  Englishman  of  rank  in 
whose  society  he  seemed  to  take  much  pleasure  was  the  eccen- 
tric Caermarthen,  whose  passion  for  the  sea  bore  some  resem- 
blance to  his  own,  and  who  was  very  competent  to  give  an 
opinion  about  every  part  of  a  ship  from  the  stem  to  the  stern. 
Caermarthen,  indeed,  became  so  great  a  favourite  that  he  pre- 
vailed on  the  Czar  to  consent  to  the  admission  of  a  limited  quan- 
tity of  tobacco  into  Russia.  There  was  reason  to  apprehend  that 
the  Russian  clergy  would  cry  out  against  any  relaxation  of  the 
ancient  rule,  and  would  strenuously  maintain  that  the  practice  of 
smoking  was  condemned  by  that  text  which  declares  that  man 
is  defiled,  not  by  those  things  which  enter  in  at  the  mouth,  but 
by  those  which  proceed  out  of  it.  This  apprehension  was  ex- 
pressed by  a  deputation  of  merchants  who  were  admitted  to  an 
audience  of  the  Czar :  but  they  were  reassured  by  the  air  with 
which  he  told  them  that  he  knew  how  to  keep  priests  in  order. 


448  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

He  was  indeed  so  free  from  any  bigoted  attachment  to  the 
religion  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up  that  both  Papists 
and  Protestants  hoped  at  different  times  to  make  him  a  prose- 
lyte. Burnet,  commissioned  by  his  brethren,  and  impelled,  no 
doubt,  by  his  own  restless  curiosity  and  love  of  meddling, 
repaired  to  Deptford  and  was  honoured  with  several  audiences. 
The  Czar  could  not  be  persuaded  to  exhibit  himself  at  Saint 
Paul's ;  but  he  was  induced  to  visit  Lambeth  palace.  There 
he  saw  the  ceremony  of  ordination  performed,  and  expressed 
warm  approbation  of  the  Anglican  ritual.  Nothing  in  England 
astonished  him  so  much  as  the  Archiepiscopal  library.  It  was 
the  first  good  collection  of  books  that  he  had  seen ;  and  he 
declared  that  he  had  never  imagined  that  there  were  so  many 
printed  volumes  in  the  world. 

The  impression  which  he  made  on  Burnet  was  not  favour- 
able. The  good  bishop  could  not  understand  that  a  mind  which 
seemed  to  be  chiefly  occupied  with  questions  about  the  best 
place  for  a  capstan  and  the  best  way  of  rigging  a  jury  mast 
might  be  capable,  not  merely  of  ruling  an  empire,  but  of 
creating  a  nation.  He  complained  that  he  had  gone  to  see  a 
great  prince,  and  had  found  only  an  industrious  shipwright. 
Nor  does  Evelyn  seem  to  have  formed  a  much  more  favour- 
able opinion  of  his  august  tenant.  It  was,  indeed,  not  in  the 
character  of  tenant  that  the  Czar  was  likely  to  gain  the  good 
word  of  civilized  men.  With  all  the  high  qualities  which  were 
peculiar  to  himself,  he  had  all  the  filthy  habits  which  were 
then  common  among  his  countrymen.  To  the  end  of  his  life, 
while  disciplining  armies,  founding  schools,  framing  codes, 
organizing  tribunals,  building  cities  in  deserts,  joining  distant 
seas  by  artificial  rivers,  he  lived  in  his  palace  like  a  hog  in  a 
sty;  and,  when  he  was  entertained  by  other  sovereigns,  never 
failed  to  leave  on  their  tapestried  walls  and  velvet  state  beds 
unequivocal  proof  that  a  savage  had  been  there.  Evelyn's 
house  was  left  in  such  a  state  that  the  Treasury  quieted  his 
complaints  with  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  449 

Towards  the  close  of  March  the  Czar  visited  Portsmouth, 
saw  a  sham  sea-fight  at  Spithead,  watched  every  movement  of 
the  contending  fleets  with  intense  interest,  and  expressed  in 
warm  terms  his  gratitude  to  the  hospitable  government  which 
had  provided  so  delightful  a  spectacle  for  his  amusement  and 
instruction.  After  passing  more  than  three  months  in  England, 
he  departed  in  high  good  humour. 

(/)  THE  DEATH  OF  WILLIAM 

Meanwhile  reports  about  the  state  of  the  King's  health  were 
constantly  becoming  more  and  more  alarming.  His  medical 
advisers,  both  English  and  Dutch,  were  at  the  end  of  their 
resources.  He  had  consulted  by  letter  all  the  most  eminent 
physicians  of  Europe ;  and,  as  he  was  apprehensive  that  they 
might  return  flattering  answers  if  they  knew  who  he  was,  he 
had  written  under  feigned  names.  To  Fagon  he  had  described 
himself  as  a  parish  priest.  Fagon  replied,  somewhat  bluntly, 
that  such  symptoms  could  have  only  one  meaning,  and  that 
the  only  advice  which  he  had  to  give  to  the  sick  man  was  to 
prepare  himself  for  death.  Having  obtained  this  plain  answer, 
William  consulted  Fagon  again  without  disguise,  and  obtained 
some  prescriptions  which  were  thought  to  have  a  little  retarded 
the  approach  of  the  inevitable  hour.  But  the  great  King's 
days  were  numbered.  Headaches  and  shivering  fits  returned 
on  him  almost  daily.  He  still  rode  and  even  hunted ;  but 
he  had  no  longer  that  firm  seat  or  that  perfect  command  of 
the  bridle  for  which  he  had  once  been  renowned.  Still  all  his 
care  was  for  the  future.  The  filial  respect  and  tenderness  of 
Albemarle  had  been  almost  a  necessary  of  life  to  him.  But 
it  was  of  importance  that  Heinsius  should  be  fully  informed 
both  as  to  the  whole  plan  of  the  next  campaign  and  as  to  the 
state  of  the  preparations.  Albemarle  was  in  full  possession  of 
the  King's  views  on  these  subjects.  He  was  therefore  sent  to 
the  Hague.  Heinsius  was  at  that  time  suffering  from  indis- 
position, which  was  indeed  a  trifle  when  compared  with  the 


450  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

maladies  under  which  William  was  sinking.  But  in  the  nature 
of  William  there  was  none  of  that  selfishness  which  is  the  too 
common  vice  of  invalids.  On  the  twentieth  of  February  he 
sent  to  Heinsius  a  letter  in  which  he  did  not  even  allude  to 
his  own  sufferings  and  infirmities.  "I  am,"  he  said,  "infi- 
nitely concerned  to  learn  that  your  health  is  not  yet  quite  re- 
established. May  God  be  pleased  to  grant  you  a  speedy 
recovery.  I  am  unalterably  your  good  friend,  William."  Those 
were  the  last  lines  of  that  long  correspondence. 

On  the  twentieth  of  February  William  was  ambling  on  a 
favourite  horse,  named  Sorrel,  through  the  park  of  Hampton 
Court.  He  urged  his  horse  to  strike  into  a  gallop  just  at  the 
spot  where  a  mole  had  been  at  work.  Sorrel  stumbled  on  the 
mole-hill,  and  went  down  on  his  knees.  The  King  fell  off, 
and  broke  his  collar  bone.  The  bone  was  set ;  and  he  returned 
to  Kensington  in  his  coach.  The  jolting  of  the  rough  roads 
of  that  time  made  it  necessary  to  reduce  the  fracture  again. 
To  a  young  and  vigorous  man  such  an  accident  would  have 
been  a  trifle.  But  the  frame  of  William  was  not  in  a  condition 
to  bear  even  the  slightest  shock.  He  felt  that  his  time  was 
short,  and  grieved,  with  a  grief  such  as  only  noble  spirits  feel, 
to  think  that  he  must  leave  his  work  but  half  finished.  It  was 
possible  that  he  might  still  live  until  one  of  his  plans  should 
be  carried  into  execution.  He  had  long  known  that  the  rela- 
tion in  which  England  and  Scotland  stood  to  each  other  was 
at  best  precarious,  and  often  unfriendly,  and  that  it  might 
be  doubted  whether,  in  an  estimate  of  the  British  power,  the 
resources  of  the  smaller  country  ought  not  to  be  deducted 
from  thqpe  of  the  larger.  Recent  events  had  proved  that,  with- 
out doubt,  the  two  kingdoms  could  not  possibly  continue  for 
another  year  to  be  on  the  terms  on  which  they  had  been 
during  the  preceding  century,  and  that  there  must  be  between 
them  either  absolute  union  or  deadly  enmity.  Their  enmity 
would  bring  frightful  calamities,  not  on  themselves  alone,  but 
on  all  the  civilized  world.  Their  union  would  be  the  best 
security  for  the  prosperity  of  both,  for  the  internal  tranquillity 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  451 

of  the  island,  for  the  just  balance  of  power  among  European 
states,  and  for  the  immunities  of  all  Protestant  countries.  On 
the  twenty-eighth  of  February  the  Commons  listened  with 
uncovered  heads  to  the  last  message  that  bore  William's  sign 
manual.  An  unhappy  accident,  he  told  them,  had  forced  him 
to  make  to  them  in  writing  a  communication  which  he  would 
gladly  have  made  from  the  throne.  He  had,  in  the  first  year 
of  his  reign,  expressed  his  desire  to  see  an  union  accomplished 
between  England  and  Scotland.  He  was  convinced  that  noth- 
ing could  more  conduce  to  the  safety  and  happiness  of  both. 
He  should  think  it  his  peculiar  felicity  if,  before  the  close  of 
his  reign,  some  happy  expedient  could  be  devised  for  making 
the  two  kingdoms  one ;  and  he,  in  the  most  earnest  manner, 
recommended  the  question  to  the  consideration  of  the  Houses. 
It  was  resolved  that  the  message  should  be  taken  into  consid- 
eration on  Saturday,  the  seventh  of  March. 

But  on  the  first  of  March  humours  of  menacing  appearance 
showed  themselves  in  the  King's  knee.  On  the  fourth  of 
March  he  was  attacked  by  fever;  on  the  fifth  his  strength 
failed  greatly ;  and  on  the  sixth  he  was  scarcely  kept  alive  by 
cordials.  The  Abjuration  Bill  and  a  money  bill  were  awaiting 
his  assent.  That  assent  he  felt  that  he  should  not  be  able  to 
give  in  person.  He  therefore  ordered  a  commission  to  be 
prepared  for  his  signature.  His  hand  was  now  too  weak  to 
form  the  letters  of  his  name,  and  it  was  suggested  that  a 
stamp  should  be  prepared.  On  the  seventh  of  March  the  stamp 
was  ready.  The  Lord  Keeper  and  the  clerks  of  the  Parlia- 
ment came,  according  to  usage,  to  witness  the  signing  of  the 
commission.  But  they  were  detained  some  hours  in^the  ante- 
chamber while  he  was  in  one  of  the  paroxysms  of  his  malady. 
Meanwhile  the  Houses  were  sitting.  It  was  Saturday,  the 
seventh,  the  day  on  which  the  Commons  had  resolved  to  take 
into  consideration  the  question  of  the  union  with  Scotland. 
But  that  subject  was  not  mentioned.  It  was  known  that  the 
King  had  but  a  few  hours  to  live;  and  the  members  asked 
each  other  anxiously  whether  it  was  likely  that  the  Abjuration 


452  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

and  money  bills  would  be  passed  before  he  died.  After  sitting 
long  in  the  expectation  of  a  message,  the  Commons  adjourned 
till  six  in  the  afternoon.  By  that  time  William  had  recovered 
himself  sufficiently  to  put  the  stamp  on  the  parchment  which 
authorized  his  commissioners  to  act  for  him.  In  the  evening, 
when  the  Houses  had  assembled,  Black  Rod  knocked.  The 
Commons  were  summoned  to  the  bar  of  the  Lords ;  the  com- 
mission was  read,  the  Abjuration  Bill  and  the  Malt  Bill  became 
laws,  and  both  Houses  adjourned  till  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing of  the  following  day.  The  following  day  was  Sunday.  But 
there  was  little  chance  that  William  would  live  through  the 
night.  It  was  of  the  highest  importance  that,  within  the 
shortest  possible  time  after  his  decease,  the  successor  desig- 
nated by  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  the  Act  of  Succession  should 
receive  the  homage  of  the  Estates  of  the  Realm,  and  be  pub- 
licly proclaimed  in  the  Council :  and  the  most  rigid  Pharisee 
in  the  Society  for  the  Reformation  of  Manners  could  hardly 
deny  that  it  was  lawful  to  save  the  State,  even  on  the  Sabbath. 
The  King  meanwhile  was  sinking  fast.  Albemarle  had 
arrived  at  Kensington  from  the  Hague,  exhausted  by  rapid 
travelling.  His  master  kindly  bade  him  go  to  rest  for  some 
hours,  and  then  summoned  him  to  make  his  report.  That 
report  was  in  all  respects  satisfactory.  The  States  General 
were  in  the  best  temper ;  the  troops,  the  provisions,  and  the 
magazines  were  in  the  best  order.  Everything  was  in  readi- 
ness for  an  early  campaign.  William  received  the  intelligence 
with  the  calmness  of  a  man  whose  work  was  done.  He  was 
under  no  delusion  as  to  his  danger.  "  I  am  fast  drawing,"  he 
said,  "  to  my  end."  His  end  was  worthy  of  his  life.  His 
intellect  was  not  for  a  moment  clouded.  His  "fortitude  was 
the  more  admirable  because  he  was  not  willing  to  die.  He 
had  very  lately  said  to  one  of  those  whom  he  most  loved  : 
"  You  know  that  I  never  feared  death  ;  there  have  been  times 
when  I  should  have  wished  it ;  but,  now  that  this  great  new 
prospect  is  opening  before  me,  I  do  wish  to  stay  here  a  little 
longer."  Yet  no  weakness,-  no  querulousness,  disgraced  the 


HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND  453 

noble  close  of  that  noble  career.  To  the  physicians  the  King 
returned  his  thanks  graciously  and  gently.  "  I  know  that  you 
have  done  all  that  skill  and  learning  could  do  for  me :  but 
the  case  is  beyond  your  art ;  and  I  submit."  From  the  words 
which  escaped  him  he  seemed  to  be  frequently  engaged  in 
mental  prayer.  Burnet  and  Tenison  remained  many  hours 
in  the  sick  room.  He  professed  to  them  his  firm  belief  in 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  received  the  sacrament 
from  their  hands  with  great  seriousness.  The  antechambers 
were  crowded  all  night  with  lords  and  privy  councillors.  He 
ordered  several  of  them  to  be  called  in,  and  exerted  himself 
to  take  leave  of  them  with  a  few  kind  and  cheerful  words. 
Among  the  English  who  were  admitted  to  his  bedside  were 
Devonshire  and  Ormond.  But  there  were  in  the  crowd  those 
who  felt  as  no  Englishman  could  feel,  friends  of  his  youth  who 
had  been  true  to  him,  and  to  whom  he  had  been  true,  through 
all  vicissitudes  of  fortune ;  who  had  served  him  with  unalterable 
fidelity  when  his  Secretaries  of  State,  his  Treasury,  and  his 
Admiralty  had  betrayed  him  ;  who  had  never  on  any  field 
of  battle,  or  in  an  atmosphere  tainted  with  loathsome  and 
deadly  disease,  shrunk  from  placing  their  own  lives  in  jeopardy 
to  save  his,  and  whose  truth  he  had  at  the  cost  of  his  own 
popularity  rewarded  with  bounteous  munificence.  He  strained 
his  feeble  voice  to  thank  Auverquerque  for  the  affectionate 
and  loyal  services  of  thirty  years.  To  Albemarle  he  gave  the 
keys  of  his  closet,  and  of  his  private  drawers.  "  You  know," 
he  said,  "what  to  do  with  them."  By  this  time  he  could 
scarcely  respire.  "  Can  this,"  he  said  to  the  physicians,  "  last 
long  ? "  He  was  told  that  the  end  was  approaching.  He 
swallowed  a  cordial,  and  asked  for  Bentinck.  Those  were 
his  last  articulate  words.  Bentinck  instantly  came  to  the 
bedside,  bent  down,  and  placed  his  ear  close  to  the  King's 
mouth.  The  lips  of  the  dying  man  moved ;  but  nothing  could 
he  heard.  The  King  took  the  hand  of  his  earliest  friend,  and 
pressed  it  tenderly  to  his  heart.  In  that  moment,  no  doubt, 
all  that  had  cast  a  slight  passing  cloud  over  their  long  and 


454  SELECTIONS  FROM  MACAULAY 

pure  friendship  was  forgotten.  It  was  now  between  seven  and 
eight  in  the  morning.  He  closed  his  eyes,  and  gasped  for 
breath.  The  bishops  knelt  down  and  read  the  commendatory 
prayer.  When  it  ended  William  was  no  more. 

When  his  remains  were  laid  out,  it  was  found  that  he  wore 
next  to  his  skin  a  small  piece  of  black  silk  riband.  The  lords 
in  waiting  ordered  it  to  be  taken  off.  It  contained  a  gold  ring 
and  a  lock  of  the  hair  of  Mary. 


A     000700334 


